Walking in the Shadows of a Past Reality
by T.S. Blue
Summary: A moonshine runner trusts his life and livelihood to the shadows. But dark lessons learned in the black night don't always fade with the light of day. Rated T for language and roughness. Complete.
1. Letting Things Fly

_**Author's Note:** Me again!_

_I'd warn you that this one's different, but it'd just sound like a broken record. So I'll give you a 'just the facts, ma'am' lowdown. This started as a what-if: what if the boys never got caught on that fateful moonshine run? And the more I pecked at that idea, the more it mutated -- into this._

_Which turns out to be an AU story which borrows heavily from canon. It's rough and dirty, might burn if you swallow it too quick. And not for everyone, just like moonshine._

_Bottoms up!_

* * *

**Chapter One - Letting Things Fly**

February 1985

It's the scar that tips him over the edge. Could be it actually starts with the way Daisy's fluttering around the house, kitchen to bathroom and back, occasionally lighting in other rooms to tidy away nonexistent dust motes.

"Feet," she's been reminding them, punctuated by the occasional swat, belong on the floor, not on tables. She's even got the audacity to swipe a cookie right out of Bo's hand. "You're getting crumbs everywhere." Which is a physical impossibility, what with the way he never got a chance to bite into the thing. "Besides, they're for the guests." Guests. Fancy name for Enos and his stand-in parents, Rosco and Lulu. What with Enos' folks being gone now, and Lulu's ripe-on-the-vine maternal instincts, it's the perfect arrangement.

Except there aren't enough cookies in all of Hazzard for that bunch, and no one would ever notice if Bo managed to scarf one of Daisy's down. Besides, it seems to his memory like Miss Lulu's liable to bring her own bonbons, and probably couldn't care less about homemade chocolate chip cookies. Certainly she won't appreciate them half as much as Bo does. Of course, she'll probably love the silly, purple-flower-covered mugs that decorate the top of the old coffee table – their handles are too tiny to accommodate four fingers and a thumb, and they don't hold enough liquid to quench even part of a thirst. Which is fine, Daisy's going to put tea in them anyway, and Bo's got no use for the hot, brown water that only has any flavor when it's full of sugar.

Luke's across the room rolling his eyes, most likely at Daisy. They've tried to help her prepare the old farmhouse, but she's shooed them in here and sat them down like little boys with muddy feet and an itching desire to make a mess of her floors. And that's just foolishness; it's been dry in the Southeast this whole winter, and even if it had been raining outside, he and Luke have been stuck inside here with Daisy all day. No chores to be done anymore, no livestock to feed, no crops to check. Banished to a small square of the house as punishment for past offenses, apparently. Not like the Duke boys of old. "Sit up straight," comes the reminder from where their shapely cousin is scrubbing the shine right off the kitchen sink.

For all that Daisy's teenaged-girl-on-her-first-date energy starts it, it's the scar that makes it impossible to ignore. Not a particularly big thing, it doesn't even cross the full span of Luke's wrist. Just sits there on top of his skin, puffy and white. It's got to be a few years old by now, the way it's so well healed over. Probably prone to sunburn, and Luke had better be careful down here. Not that February is a time when Hazzard folks tend to get a lot of sunburn, but Luke there has been in the frozen north for a dang long time. He'd probably be in shorts right now, complaining of heat exhaustion and spending time with his own long shadows out there on the porch, if Daisy would let him. But no, she's got them caged here in their best jeans and button down shirts (country boy clothes he's gotten out of the habit of wearing), told to sit and stay and forget the rest of their tricks. At least until the guests of honor arrive, then those well-trained Duke boys will be allowed to shake hands.

All the same, Georgia's sweaty enough for the Montana boy that Luke's become. He's rolled up his sleeves, leaving that white pucker to peek out from underneath, providing an ugly reminder of a time when they shared everything, when he knew each part of Luke. Bo can probably still list off the cause of all the marks on Luke from their younger years, but that thing on his arm—

"Where'd you get that?" Bo asks, pointing to his own wrist. Luke's too far away, sitting across from him on that old piano bench, for Bo to touch the offending blotch.

"It ain't nothing," is just Luke being Luke. Nothing can hurt him, not enough to matter. Bo watches his cousin play with the folded fabric of his shirt, likely considering rolling that sleeve right back down and buttoning it. Which would make sense, it's too cold for a normal man to be dripping with sweat like Luke is right now, and no one else would be acting like it's a perfectly hot June day, instead of mid-winter. But fixing his shirt would only be hiding what Bo's already seen. "Just a burn."

"Well, yeah," Bo finds himself agreeing to the obvious; it was his own foolishness that allowed Luke to be intentionally dense. Out of practice for getting worthwhile information from Luke Duke. "But where'd you get it?"

"Not where you think," Luke says, still above any notion that it was ever painful. "Over the grill, cooking for a staff picnic." Makes a face about that, the embarrassment or the foolishness, or maybe Bo for asking in the first place.

He ought to laugh at the absurdity. His big, tough cousin, facing down death in the form of wildfires every day, never seems to get a scratch. Just like their younger days when Luke used to take to the outside of the car as often as the inside, tossing an M-80 or three at revenuer's tires, reminding the law of Hazzard why it was that Dukes never got caught on a 'shine run. Never held on with more than a couple of fingertips around the doorframe, offering danger a laugh for its efforts to get at him. _Hold her steady, Bo_, he'd say, then be gone. Banging, popping, and crashing would follow, then Luke would be back at his side with a dirty chuckle in his ear about how Harvey really fell for it this time, and Rosco ought to know better than to help a revenuer. He never congratulated Bo on his driving (held the car so smooth over ruts and bumps that Luke never even had to stumble out there) and Bo never said a word about Luke's bravery. Didn't have to, they could read each other's minds.

Which is how what ought to be laughter at Luke getting burned by something as mundane as a staff picnic turns to melancholy, reminds him how years of routine, driving laps for no other reason than to get to the end first, haven't been fulfilling. Makes him consider all over again what Jesse would have wanted for them, what he was trying to tell them all those years ago about family.

"Luke," comes out without him even meaning for it to. It's not a complaint, not asking for anything. Maybe just regret popping out from every pore of him, like the acne he suffered from back in high school.

"Bo—just don't," is his charming cousin's response.

* * *

June 1974

"Hold her steady, Bo," was the command. "Left at the fork."

_He's young yet_, his Uncle Jesse had reminded him before they set out into the dark, fog thick as honey, dripping-hot night. Navigating by fuzzy starlight, a skill he hardly remembered being taught, it was so long ago, since honed by a couple of years spent figuring out those same stars from the other side of the planet. No moon, perfect night. Too bad for old Harvey Essex that he chose tonight to get lucky on the old moonshine trails of Hazzard. Silly revenuer didn't stand a chance.

Bo might have been young, but he had as many years on him as other men Luke had trusted his life to, men with less skill at their specialties. For all that the kid was fresh out of school, he'd gained more feel for a car than most men twice his age ever got. Luke would be as safe on the roof of old Tilly, when he got all the way out there, as he would be in his mother's arms. If he had a mother he could remember as more than the scent of lilacs.

"What're you gonna do, Luke?" came the question from inside the car, and maybe it was more of a complaint. Bo always missed the best parts of these things, what with the way he had to keep his eyes peeled for danger out in front.

All the same, Luke had no time for explaining, and Bo sure as heck wouldn't benefit from distractions. "Never you mind," Luke called back into the window before pulling his right knee up to get his boot solidly settled on the window frame. Out in the wind the air wasn't so stifling as down there in the car. Maybe his cousin had a legitimate gripe with all the freedom and fresh air he wasn't getting behind the wheel. Luke reached across Tilly's roof, looking for a handhold on the other side. Found his grip, wrapped his fingertips wrapped around the driver's doorframe to hoist himself up, hair blowing into his eyes. Not sure how he felt about that part, having so much hair seemed a nuisance after the easy days of quarter-inch length limits. Still, it fit in with the life he left behind for those two obligatory years, the life he came back to back in the chill of early March. Stateside farmboys with exciting night lives still wore their hair collar long, at the least. Like Bo's luminous yellow, right there glowing even in the lack of light around them. So much of that fluff around his ears that Luke was surprised Bo could hear his words as he dropped his head down over the driver's side window, yelling, "You'll hear it when it comes by. Just keep one eye on your mirror." Because Bo could manage that without missing a beat so far as keeping the car steady went.

"Huh-ha!" was the extent of acknowledgement he got from his kid cousin, just enough to let him hear Bo's appreciation for the warning.

His right hand stayed clenched to Bo's doorframe, providing stability while he pivoted around to sitting. Kept his head ducked even though he knew there were no low lying branches on this part of the trail. Gunner's instincts kept him from having a high enough profile for Harvey's old eyes to see through the windshield of that dinged up Chevy he prowled around in, hoping to nail a moonshiner's nephews in the honest delivery of their goods.

Cowboy boots lacked the traction of good, Marine-regulation footwear, but with the right, solid set of his feet, Luke was ready to let go and trust the steadiness of Bo's hold on the wheel to keep him safe. Two hands were needed for this simple, but entertaining little trick. Match out of one front pocket, quarter stick of dynamite came out of the other. Slingshot got dug out of the back and he was set. Lit match, shielded against the wind just long enough to set the wick sparkling, explosive settled into the pouch of the slingshot. From there it was simple math to pick the exact moment for letting things fly—waiting just long enough to keep his fingers attached to his hand.

The first shot rang out late, after it hit Harvey's grill and dropped to the ground. Just the slightest pitch change to that revved up engine back there, and Luke knew the revenuer had backed off. Probably trying to figure out whether the Duke boys had gone mountain-man crazy and taken to disobeying family rules and shooting at revenuers. Because Harvey knew Jesse as well as anyone in Hazzard did, and while their uncle wasn't exactly a saint, he was as close to it as an illegal whiskey-making, cantankerous law-breaker could be. Dukes revenged on property, not people, and never shot first or with the intention of doing any real harm.

Second quarter-stick was lit and waiting in Luke's hand. Precision was more important than fear, a simple lesson he thought he'd learned over there in the rice paddies and bamboo stands, weapon at the tip of his right index finger. Maybe he was getting soft out here in these nights with Bo, where he knew the enemy wasn't half as smart or sneaky as he'd grown used to. Fortunately with the likes of revenuers and Hazzard lawmen, there was ample opportunity for second chances, even third, if need be.

But the second quarter stick found its mark, blowing right in front of the Chevy's windshield. Hot white explosion, punctuating echo, and Harvey was gone. Off the side of the moonshine trail and into the ditch. Skidding crunch and bang and—

"Yee haw!" penetrated the fog hanging in the air like sweat. Bo hadn't missed the fun tonight.

Luke was still laughing by the time he slid back into the passenger window to hear Bo's high pitched giggles. _He's young yet_, yeah, Jesse wasn't wrong about that part. Young and fearless and more fun than a whole mess of recruits that reckoned sitting around a campfire and telling tall tales about the girls they'd left behind was a good way to kill a few hours in the dark. Not that Luke hadn't told tales of his own, but his were truer than most. Girls he'd had, and the ones that'd be waiting for him to get home. Still, none of that was half as worthwhile as careening through the dark, outsmarting men who ought to know better by now. With Bo.

* * *

July 1974

Lazy, cool float, eyes squinted down against the hot sun. Crazy way to lay, probably, exposing all his most sensitive parts to potential sunburn. Luke over there was a lot smarter than him, but then he always had been. Standing chest-deep, letting the sun have his shoulders and face if it was looking for someplace to leave its mark.

Skinny-dipping interrupted by chores, must be summer. Could be summer for the rest of his life, now. School was out forever this time, and Luke was home. Everything Bo had been wanting since that terrible fall when Luke got that notice from Uncle Sam, ordering him to report for a physical exam. Wasn't but three months later his cousin got that next order, telling him to report for induction. Scheming as ever, Luke was just too smart for the military, reckoned that taking two years of active duty in a combat zone would get him out of the rest of his six-year obligation. Worked, too, but it meant Bo's final years of high school spent worrying about a war half a world away, with only girls and moonshine runs as a distraction. The girls worked as long as they were right there, warm and soft under the tips of his fingers. Once they went back to their daddies' roofs, and the stories filtered back to Jesse about how another one of them Duke boys was up to no good, there was nothing to keep him from missing Luke. Seemed like, if he was going to deal with the wrath of an overwrought uncle, it was always more manageable with Luke at his side.

Moonshine deliveries, that was the kind of thing that worked to distract a man. Branches whipping at the side of the car, air throbbing in through open windows, bottles clanking against each other with every solid bump – it was like nothing else in the world. Even the revenuer disappeared after awhile, leaving it down to just Bo and the car - becoming one, slipping through the night with the kind of agility his long body never allowed for anywhere else. Made him wonder, sometimes, what Luke was running from over there in Vietnam, and whether it was half the challenge of a moonshine run. But he couldn't dwell on it, didn't get stuck imagining what could go wrong in some jungle on the other side of the world, not when he was racing through the swamps of Hazzard.

Running the family wares might just have been what Bo was born for; in any case there was no doubt in his mind that his primary purpose on this earth didn't have anything to do with growing corn. From seed to harvest, there wasn't much of anything he could stand about that stuff, didn't even think it was all that great for the eating. Which Dukes rarely did, what with the need to ferment it all, with sugar and yeast, then boil off the best parts. The end result was a fine swill, the kind of thing every family ought to keep in their pantry. Making it was like… well Jesse called it cooking, and Bo reckoned that was exactly what it was. The kind of thing Daisy might like doing, if the old man would let her near the stills. But Jesse had his reasons, and Bo couldn't put up a reasonable argument against them, for why Daisy shouldn't be standing guard in the woods, protecting two barrels and a copper worm against revenuers, the local law and their competition (and sometimes all three came in the same package) with nothing but a shotgun and her wits. That kind of thing was a man's work and not intended for the only one of them that Jesse figured might carry on the family line.

Which meant Bo spent a lot of time sitting on a stump, stoking the fire with ash logs, watching the works chug along, and occasionally getting sent to haul sugar up the hill or full jugs back down, an oddly welcome excuse to stretch his legs. Could have been a lab for chemistry class, for all the attention he paid the process. Seemed to his memory like he passed that class by the skin of his teeth, same way he always managed to keep from blowing up a vat or the still. Maybe Jesse got credit for keeping their livelihood in one piece; Bo was too busy remembering how Luke would scheme breaks into the process. Extra trips for sugar or meal, and on a good day, to get some copper tubing. Mash stuck and scorched while Bo wondered whether it would be any fun to make his excuses and escape for an hour or so, if it was just him alone, and Luke was still somewhere on the other side of the world.

Eventually Jesse reckoned out how little he needed Bo at the still, and left him to the delivery. Speed and danger substituted for Luke at night, and girls substituted during the days spent skinny-dipping at this same pond. And for all the things the girls had, they weren't Luke, standing over there and just letting the water cool him down while Bo glided across the surface.

"Luke," was just putting ripples in the silence between them, nothing so big as a splash.

"Mmm?" made it back to Bo, even through the water lapping up around his ears.

"Dirt track circuit starts back up in September." He had to stand up out of the water, couldn't concentrate on floating and talk at the same time. Besides, it was probably time to get some of those more tender parts of him out of the sun. "Ain't nobody we can't beat on it." Just the same old suspects from town mostly, Cooter, Enos, Dobro…

"Can't beat none of them without wheels," came the reminder from the smart one. Poking holes without offering solutions, when Luke knew damn well where this was going anyway.

"Which is why we better get to work on that." It was only their plan since back before Bo's voice began to change (seemed like Luke's never needed to – must have changed, every boy's voice changed at some point, but thinking back as far as his brain would let him, Bo always heard Luke's mature, graveled voice coming out of that smaller body his cousin used to have), building a car that could fly.

Luke laughed. Could have been mean, scolding Bo for holding him to childhood promises. Wasn't, it was the kind of laugh that mostly only got heard in the dark of night, coming from the roof of a fast-moving car. Guaranteed fun, warned of danger to anyone who dared to challenge the Duke boys. It was as good as a promise.


	2. A Moment of Life

_**Author's Note:** Thanks for joining me on another one of these little journeys. This one's quite a bit different in how it doesn't rely on canon, but borrows from it. Best simply to think of it as AU, probably. And to remember that the moonshine-running Dukes were a bit rougher all around than the characters came to be during the series' later years._

_I forgot to say how I own nothing and make no money, but sadly, it's true._

**

* * *

**

Chapter Two - A Moment of Life

February 1985

Leave it to Bo to get twisted up in a knot about a pointless, little, years-old scar on Luke's arm. It's not like it matters much, other than being a lump of skin he has to decide whether to button his shirt cuff over or not. Doesn't hurt anymore, it hardly even did when it happened. Bo's just being dramatic in acting like it's anything they need to talk about.

(_And if the very first thing he did when he arrived at the farmhouse was to check Bo over for nicks and dings, signs that NASCAR has left any kind of an ugly mark on him, that's just habit. Started too young, maybe, him watching over Bo. Like brushing his teeth, it's the kind of thing his Aunt Lavinia nags in his head about. Is Bo all right? You have to look after your little cousin_.)

They're big boys now, would both tower over Lavinia were she still around to see them. They can most certainly each tend to their own wounds without the other one there to watch and worry. Heck, somewhere in the last nine years or so, Bo must've learned how to get out of bed without Luke there to shove him, figured out eating three square meals a day. He's in good shape, looks like, even if his shoulders are slumped in deference to that lecture he's getting from Daisy. Funny how she doesn't trust Bo to behave at her wedding, how she expects him to be more interested in the bridesmaids than the ceremony. Girl knows what she's talking about. She's got Bo pinned to the wall with her sharp girl-claws, and it's as fine a reason as any for Luke to slip out of the house.

Nostalgia has no place here amongst the ruins of a farm. The house stands as well as it ever did, which means it's in serious need of some repair. Still got mile-wide gaps in its boards that a stiff wind can whistle through without hardly getting interrupted from its original northerly path. Makes Daisy shiver under her turtleneck sweater, while Bo pretends to stand up to it. For Luke it's a different thing entirely; used to a brittle, iced-over life from about October through April, this is a reprieve. A moment of life in the middle of death; the sun is out for more hours than he's seen since early fall, warming things to a temperature where the hardiest of Montana's wildflowers would poke their heads out of the newly thawed ground.

Hazzard's brown. Everything's fast asleep with no thoughts of waking up. Jesse did his best with the farm after his children went off in their various directions, but it's now been a lot of years since there was anything living here to come out of dormancy. Searching out flowers for Jesse's grave yesterday was harder than it should have been (Rhuebottom's just doesn't carry out-of-season supplies, so they had to go out to Capitol City), delivering them up to the cemetery at the top of the hill was excruciating. He ended up with one cousin at each of his sides, clinging there and crying like it hadn't been years since the old man passed. And it wasn't that Luke didn't miss their uncle too, more like he might have appreciated a few minutes alone at the gravesite.

And, he realizes, that seems to be his destination right now. Walking through dead fields in a county that used to be vibrant with life, as out-of-control, pest and weed-ridden as it was. The most colorful of all the various malignancies might have been the man who hid his dark and selfish heart behind a white suit. No one the Dukes enjoyed having as County Commissioner or as competition for their best 'shine customers, but the man had enlivened the place, keeping Luke on his toes. It's not the same in this corner of Georgia without old J.D. Hogg.

Rosco must feel it more than anyone, even Lulu. Sure, back in those days the sheriff had to look the other way so much it's a wonder he didn't wind up wall-eyed. But Boss Hogg had been Rosco's sole friend and the one person who would abuse the sheriff in exactly the same way his domineering mother had. If it wasn't love, it was at least comfort, and Rosco had blossomed into a twisted little prickly-pear flower under the overbearing crush of Boss Hogg's attentions. Lulu, sweet as she is, can't be any kind of a real substitute for her now dead husband. Still, according to Daisy (who would know, what with her engagement to Enos and all), Rosco and his sister are now inseparable, even living under the same roof again for the first time since they were kids.

Corn, there used to be row after even row of the stuff right here in these fields Luke's crossing, its monotonous uniformity disguising its greater purpose in this little swath of Appalachia. And when there weren't shoulder-high stalks, the land used to be covered in freshly turned soil. Now the farm turns out abundant weeds; Luke's jeans are picking up more burrs than dirt.

The old burial grounds are still set off from the rest of the property, lined in trees. They've also been maintained by Daisy since she returned to Hazzard last year, so while the grass that covers their ancestors is winter-brown, at least it's neatly trimmed and raked free of leaves. It's about the only respite from the desolation of the rest of the Duke property.

Standing in front of his uncle's plot, Luke finds that whatever he might have wanted to say or ask has deserted him now. Maybe it makes its own kind of sense, the silence of this space. Could be the fondest memories he's got of the man who raised them are the quiet ones, companionable moments of tending to the works, watching the moonshine cool back from steam to liquid. Or passing a wrench from one old, tired and wrinkled hand into another, young and strong grip. Luke couldn't have hit puberty by the time Jesse left the tractor to his care. Old thing it was, needing a new steering column after the ignition got fixed, and then there were the brakes. Troublesome as it could be, Luke loved it for the challenge in keeping it alive. And for the quiet moments he and Jesse shared in putting it back together after yet another near-death experience.

So he lets himself be quiet, even if he did have a purpose for coming up here. Keeps it to himself as he looks at the familiar headstones of family members he never knew or hardly remembers. Lavinia dominated his earliest years, and everything since then has been Jesse. A man so strong that Luke doesn't reckon he'll ever end up being half his equal.

By the time the sound of shuffling feet breaks through the hard shell of silence surrounding this place, Luke's ready to hear it. And when that familiar, heavy, hot presence drops its arm across his shoulders, Luke welcomes it.

"Hey Bo," is all he says when his cousin tips his head down so their temples can rest against one another.

* * *

November 1974

It was – there were too many things all at once to explain the emotion. "Yee-haw!" about summed it up and Luke knew exactly what he meant by it. Gave Bo the eyebrow, calm and cool, reminding him about how fully-grown adults behaved. It was more of a challenge than chastisement: _just try to make me smile_ – so he did, slung an arm around his cousin's shoulders with a good, hearty thump. Oh, but those lips were still skeptical, refusing to come out of their straight-lined denial of anything fun going on here in the grease-and-sour-milk stink of the junkyard. Wasn't Bo's fault he had to jump in the air, knowing full well that Luke would catch him before he hit the ground. A tight little smile was how Luke rewarded his efforts, followed by Cooter's idiot giggle coming from the other side of the formidable carcass of an older Dodge Charger.

"Gentelmens," the court-jester and junkyard-scavenging mechanic's son said, opening his arms expansively, "your ride." Little bow there at the end and Cooter really was the perfect idiot. Sober for once, and industrious. "Bought it off some fool boy whose daddy just got him a new car. 'Don't need this old heap anymore' he said, and gave it to me for a hundred dollars. Which I just happen to know y'all can pay me – in 'shine."

And that was what it really took to shake the last of the Marine stiffness out of Luke. He dropped Bo, rough fingers catching in the back of the filthy blue t-shirt that Daisy would be yelling about when they got home, held on just long enough to steady Bo on his feet. In a second Luke was gone, down to his knees, then flat on his back and sliding underneath the hulking steel body in front of them. Bo wasn't the only one that would be hearing about ground in dirt and how from now on they could just wash their own clothes. Which had always been an empty threat, a kind of casual power that the girl held over their heads, but just lately, Bo wasn't so sure she didn't mean it. Seemed like she was spending more and more nights out under the stars with that pinto-driving sissy-boy, L.D. (_Lame Duck_, Bo had called him, only to get Luke's rolled eyes in response. Then his cousin had whispered a pair of deliciously naughty words back at him, the kind of swearing he must have learned in the Marines. It was just a damn good thing that neither their uncle nor Daisy had been around to hear them, or Luke would have been bent over a hay bale before he could say lickety-split – or that naughty thing – again.) Could just be Daisy would rather leave their dirty jeans behind and maybe take up washing old L.D.'s.

"Yep," Luke was telling the undercarriage of the car. "She's in fine shape. Don't look like she's ever even taken any hard knocks."

"He," Bo corrected him.

Oh, Luke had an opinion of that. That sour little look on his face as he dragged himself along the dirt and out from under the car had nothing to do with the way the place (or their somewhat rancid friend – sober, but the remnant aroma of last night's entertainment hung all too heavily on his grimy clothes) smelled. "He?" clarified for them all that Luke thought Bo was an idiot.

"Well yeah," he answered, just smiling away whatever gloom Luke might have wanted to dump on him. "I figure if he's a boy, and he's a Duke, he's gonna chase down all them girl cars that are on the track."

"Shoot," Luke was answering back, of course he was. There wasn't a thing Bo ever said that Luke didn't have a smart response to. "You best hope he takes after you for the effort, and me for the success, then."

Well, if he and Luke were going to have a baby together: "We just better make sure he gets my good looks," was Bo's final assessment.

Luke's flattened lips and squinted eyes expressed his views on that matter.

"We just got some new paint at the shop. I'd be glad to swipe it for you," Cooter interjected. And that was all right, he'd delivered the baby, ought to get his say in how things turned out. "Only cost you one extra jug of 'shine."

Which made everything quite tidy, really. He and Luke would swipe 'shine from their Uncle Jesse to pay Cooter for paint that their friend stole from his father's shop. A perfect Hazzard deal.

* * *

December 1974

"Come on, Luke," was as annoying as a snot-nosed, little blonde boy pulling at his sleeve. Bo was taller than him now, and seemed to have mastered the use of the tissue. Which somehow didn't make his nagging voice any less annoying. "Let's go test out them new shocks in the General."

In a flash, Black Tilly had been discarded like last week's girlfriend. Used to be Bo couldn't wait to drive her, whether she was filled to the brim with clandestine moonshine, or traveling light with only the two of them as passengers. Now she'd become a jilted lover, replaced by the General, formally known as the General Lee. Their labor of love, even Luke had to admit that much. Main difference was that Luke knew that the General was a show pony, but Tilly was their hauling mule. Someone had to do some work around here.

"Later," Luke answered, knowing full well it wasn't going to do a thing for Bo's patience. Not that his cousin was the only one on the verge of losing his cool. "When I'm done here." Tilly was a sweet lady from behind the wheel, but under her hood was another matter. Cramped quarters where even switching out spark plugs and a simple oil change equaled bruised and nicked knuckles. And since today's misery was the serpentine belt, Luke was looking at grease-filled cuts, the likes of which were about as pleasant as snake bites. "You could help."

Restless shift from one foot to the other and Bo was behind him, breathing hot on his bare shoulder. Trying to give a damn about what Luke was doing, but it was an obvious failure. A sigh just about in his ear and Luke had enough.

"Here," he said, "hold this." Just a simple crescent wrench, Luke laid it in Bo's perfect, pink hand. The expert way Bo grabbed it, twiddling the screw to widen the span of the jaw, belied his seeming mechanical incompetence. Not to mention that the kid had showed real aptitude while building the General's engine. It wasn't about what Bo couldn't do, just what he didn't want to, and some things never changed.

_Bo_, Aunt Lavinia whispered in his brain, _has badger medicine_. _Quick to anger, aggressive in all of his emotions._ His fierce new love for the General made almost everything else disappear, everything but Luke, maybe. Because fun wasn't fun unless Luke was along for the ride.

"There," Luke pointed. "Hold that nut steady." A necessity when its companion bolt wanted to take it spinning with every twist of Luke's wrist. The two pieces of hardware might have been in perfect harmony with one another, but working the way they were was preventing Luke from making any progress here.

Lavinia was half Cherokee, her mother's side. She knew the land and its animals better than just about anyone else Luke had ever met. She knew people, too, recognized them by what she called their "animal spirits." He loved her, maybe more than the mother he'd never really known. But she put too much thought into some things, so much effort to explain what was ultimately very simple. Bo was intensely interested in one thing until he fell in love with the next. Tilly was yesterday's news.

A little elbow grease, leaning left while Bo twisted to the right, and finally the tensioner rotated enough to provide slack in the belt. Slipping his wide fingers down to find the closest pulley wasn't much fun – smeared grease into fresh scrapes on his knuckles – but at least this time, the belt came loose in Luke's hand.

"You can let her go now," he advised his clearly bored and still pink-fingered cousin. Snap and pop, the tensioner got released faster than was likely good for it.

"When we're done here," was Bo taking all too much credit for a few seconds of work. "You gonna be ready to test out them new shocks?" _When, Luke, when_ – same tone he's heard since Bo learned how to talk. _How many minutes_ used to get whined at him during those years when he had more schoolwork than Bo, got stuck sitting at the kitchen table while Lavinia made sure every last bit of it was done.

_None_, he always wanted to say and couldn't. Because Bo needed to learn that first things came first, whether it was homework or chores, and somehow, it had long ago become Luke's job to teach him. _You've got to set a good_ _example_ followed by _you're too old to get away with that anymore_ had peppered his childhood until Lavinia passed and suddenly everything she'd said was true. Bo was at his side from dawn until dusk, becoming his responsibility to look after while Jesse worked days in the fields and nights at the still, keeping a roof over their heads. Daisy was watched over by every woman within a five mile radius (_poor motherless girl needs a feminine influence_), but Bo was Luke's alone.

And a two-year hitch in the Marines hadn't changed a damn thing. Daisy was all grown up now, even got herself a job in town. Convenient sort of a thing, her working at Boss Hogg's roadhouse. Serving beer to the same men who drove for Hogg, delivering moonshine that didn't even make for good gargling, much less swallowing. All the same, the commissioner had his clients, men that were afraid to buy from anyone else. And there was nothing he'd like more than to horn in on the Dukes' business. Hiring Daisy might have been their competition's biggest mistake, even if she did pull in customers from as far off as the interstate, what with that tiny little work outfit she had to wear.

"_We'd_," Luke advised, "get done sooner if you'd get down there and change her oil. Got a run to make tonight, and she'd better be in shape for it." Up into Tennessee, where roads wound back on themselves up into the heights. No place a man should be in a car that was in anything less than perfect health.

Got him grumbled at, but Bo took off his top shirt and grabbed the drain pan before getting down to slide under the car. Big, Bo had grown just huge over the years Luke was gone, and it might have made more sense for Luke to take the low ground. If Bo could have been counted on to concentrate long enough to get the new belt properly fitted around all the pulleys.

"I know we got a delivery to make, Luke," found its way up through the engine components between him and Bo. "But we also got a race on Saturday. We got to make sure the General's ready for that, too."

Made him laugh, the way Bo felt compelled to remind him of things he'd never forgotten. "Tell you what," he answered. "You get that oil changed before I get this belt on, we'll take the General out to Dry Creek and give him a real good run. Maybe even get Enos to chase after us and make it a genuine race." After all, Rosco's newest deputy was eager enough to make a good impression, and there was no faster way to the sheriff's heart than through chasing the Duke boys.

"No problem," came back at him from under the car, like it was news. Shouldn't take Bo but half the time it would take Luke to get their respective jobs finished, considering the sheer number of pulleys he'd have to stretch the new serpentine belt around. And that was fine, Luke had every intention of letting Bo win, then letting him drive the rest of their day away. Yeah, they had obligations, but that didn't mean they couldn't have fun.


	3. Little Corner of Nowhere

_**Author's Note:** Just a reminder that this story takes place in something of an alternate universe, and yet borrows heavily from -- oddly enough -- reunion movie canon. Don't let the canon stuff confuse you, as the basis for all of this is just the idea of what might have happened if the boys never got caught running moonshine._

_And as always, I own nothing but the weird idea, and mean no harm to those who own everything but the weird idea._

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Chapter Three – Little Corner of Nowhere

February 1985

"Daisy," is how he breaks the silence imposed on them by the looming presence of their ancestors. He's surprised to find Luke here, even though he never considered looking anywhere else. You'd think that by now his Luke-radar would have dulled, and when they're apart he always assumes it has. But get him and Luke within a few miles of each other and he feels it again, that sense of whether his cousin's all right or not. Kind of an annoying thing, when it comes down to it. What's the use of a thing that can tell him Luke's in pain, if it won't tell him why, or how to fix it? "She sent me to find you. Says Enos'll be on his way and she wants us down there."

Resolute nod from the man to his left, breaking the contact where their temples were connected only seconds ago.

"I reckon we'd best get going then." And now Luke's gone from under his arm, too, as far away as Montana but still right here next to him. Bo should have known it was coming, should have relished those few seconds when Luke let him be close.

"She's done a good job," he says as they leave behind one of the best cared-for parts of the Duke property. "Getting the house ready." And making it into a home again. For a few years there, the place was left to the elements. If Boss had been alive, he surely would have turned it into a shopping mall or housing project in the intervening years. For all that the Dukes have lost they can be grateful to still have the farm.

"It's changed," is Luke's head-shaking observation, pessimistic as ever. Seeing what's not there anymore, rather than being grateful for what is.

"All of Hazzard's changed, Luke." It's almost hard to believe that this quiet little farming town used to be a wild moonshine-brewing hub for the southern Appalachians, a place where, unless a man had business, he didn't go out driving at night, lest he be sideswiped by a spooked delivery-man or a rabid but errant lawman. Must be strange for Rosco, having lost half his job in the last ten years. Now he's likely limited to routine traffic stops and the occasional racing teenager. It's got to have been weird for all of them, anyone who's stayed in Hazzard over the years. "What do you think it was like for Jesse, watching it change?"

Luke's head shakes at the foolishness of such questions, eyes looking down at the dry dirt and weeds that they're wading through, like if he doesn't watch the ground carefully it will slip out from under him and leave him in free fall. "He saw a lot of changes over his lifetime. He got used to it, I suppose. Just like he eventually got used to indoor plumbing."

Right, the thought makes Bo laugh again. How their youngest years were spent sprinting to the outhouse, rickety thing that it was, even on the coldest nights of winter. Boards didn't exactly fit tightly by then, wind came through in gusts. Splintery old seat, and everyone was very efficient in conducting their business there. Then there was bathing in that metal tub in the kitchen. Long-suffering Lavinia suggested that the closet at the end of the hall could be converted to a bathroom somewhere on the order of once a month. But it was Daisy coming to live with them that did it, finally made Jesse give in and cut through the old floorboards of that section of the house, dig underground through dirt then clay to install the first pipes. Sweet-looking little six-year-old though she was, Daisy was rough and tumble enough to use the outhouse just fine, but Jesse wouldn't have it. Installed a tub and shower while he was at it, so the girl could have a private place to get herself clean. And the rest of the household had been using the indoor bathroom for about three years before Jesse snuck in there for the first time. Outhouses had served him just fine for the first forty-some-odd years of his life, and he didn't see any reason to change… until he tried the new facilities once. After that he never used that old outhouse for anything other than storage of items he never really planned to use again anyway.

"You reckon he'd like Hazzard now?" Sleepy town that it's become, seems like the kind of place an man who has already lived the better part of his life would retire to. Come spring it'll bloom up real pretty just like it always has.

"Don't know," is all the answer he gets from the man next to him; Luke's withdrawing again. Used to be Bo could keep that from happening, could make his cousin communicate even when he didn't want to. Now he's sorely out of practice. Maybe it's the kind of thing that got lost when he dragged Luke out of Hazzard all those years ago. Seems like that's possible, seeing as so many things got lost that way.

"I think he'd be happy with Daisy," is his best attempt at prolonging the conversation. "Marrying Enos, finally."

He gets a snort for his efforts, nothing more. Then again, could be that the sound says enough. Enos is still on the wrong side of the law, but he's a good man. Jesse was always just ornery enough to want Daisy to wind up with Enos at the same time as frowning on her marrying up with a Hazzard Deputy. Might be how she decided to settle on that featherweight L.D. in the first place, because he played precisely no role whatsoever in the generations-old struggle between Dukes and lawmen. But Jesse never liked _that boy_ one bit, and he turned out to be right. Wasn't but seven years after Daisy moved off to Sweetwater with L.D. that he found someone younger to disappear with. At least Jesse had gone to a better place by the time Daisy got her heart broke. Bo figures it was for the best that the old man passed on thinking that all of his kids were well-adjusted in their adult lives.

"Luke," he asks, almost without meaning to. "Do you reckon he'd be happy with how you and me turned out?"

"He got," Luke kicks at a dirt clod, shattering it and sending the largest chunks out flying in front of them. "What he wanted, I expect. What the hell do I know, Bo? You knew him as well as I did."

Funny how that sounds to Bo's ears, like Luke wasn't the old man's favorite child, the one earmarked to take over the farm. Like maybe Luke has old, unfinished business with the man that raised them, the kind of thing that would bring him back up to the graveyard all alone in the middle of the afternoon.

"Daisy's waiting," Luke reminds him, as if he's the one who just came and fetched Bo from the far end of the property. "Come on," is how Luke shuts the conversation down, dismisses Bo in favor of a boring social gathering he can't possibly be looking forward to.

* * *

December 1974

"Enos caught me in the parking lot." The girl looked flushed as she said it. It was no wonder Bo wolf-whistled. Luke might have too, if he was younger and less concerned about how Daisy might just sabotage his undergarments in the laundry. "Not like that, Bo!" she admonished, turning to face Luke with that same old _would you make him be serious_ sort of a look. Like Luke had any control over Bo's dirty thought processes.

"Bo," he said, for appearances' sake. "Go on, honey," was directed at Daisy.

"He was taking a real risk to warn me, you know," was their cousin's last reminder to Bo about propriety. She didn't love Enos, not one bit. They'd only played at dating since about the seventh grade. And he wasn't trying to get her back out of the arms of that L.D., either, old Enos wasn't. He was just remembering his own moonshiner roots. (As to L.D., Luke reckoned all Enos had to do was to stake a claim on Daisy, and her Johnny-come-lately would seep off into the cracks at the corners of the girl's mind. Jesse would come around and give his blessing, so long as Enos proved himself worthy.)

"Sorry, Daisy," Bo muttered. Probably meant it, too. The boy was easy enough to shame.

The girl's head took on a proud little tilt, now that her cousins were just about begging her to cough up the dirt. "He says Boss don't want you to make that run up to old Silas tonight."

"How does he even know we're making that run?" Bo blurted, chest forward in challenge to their female cousin, like she'd fight him (like he had half a chance of winning if she did). The edge of Luke's hand found Bo's chest, holding him back with no pressure at all. It was the touch that did it, something so small as a pinky finger on Bo, and he'd settle down.

That little curl sitting proudly on the corner of Daisy's lips was simply one final goad at Bo. Luke applied just a little more pressure to his youngest cousin's chest while Daisy came out with the words, "Silas told him."

Yeah, that figured. Silas was a fine distributor, centrally located and a crack negotiator. He was also prone to taking a sip out of the top of each bottle before passing it on to his customers; sampling the product, he called it. Gave him a loose tongue and made him the best-paying high risk in three states. How the revenuers hadn't picked old Silas off either came down to tremendous luck or tremendous payoffs. Luke would bet on the latter.

"Thanks, Daisy," he must've said somewhere while silently cursing Silas for a fool.

"I ain't told you the most important part yet," was the warning he got before Daisy grabbed his free arm, the one that wasn't still holding Bo back from whatever he might be getting ready to strike out against. Sharp little fingernails, scratching at his skin until he returned his full attention to her. "He's gonna send Enos up after you."

"That ain't no problem," Bo scoffed, vibrations of his voice rumbling up through the hand Luke still held against his chest. "He ain't got no jurisdiction outside of Hazzard. And he ain't got half a chance against me _inside_ Hazzard."

That much was true. No one, excepting maybe Luke, could get near Bo on familiar roads, not unless Bo wanted them to. Still: "If Boss is sending Enos after us, it's only to make sure that we go running right into Harvey Essex up on the pass."

"Ain't but one way up there, Luke. If Harvey pins us down on the pass…"

"Yeah, we'd better put off the run a day or two, do it sometime when Boss ain't expecting us." Because for all his brilliance behind the wheel, even Bo couldn't do anything except keep a car steady on the pass. Rock cliff face to the west, steep drop off to the east, and nowhere to go to get around a roadblock up there.

"Luke," and Daisy's claws were digging into his arm again. He had one hand sacrificed to each of his cousins, and none to rub at his eyebrows, where a headache was just starting up. "Listen to me." The way those fingernails clawed at him wasn't exactly fair; he'd been listening all along. "That's just what Boss wants you to do. He's got Alex heading up there tonight. He reckons to take over Silas from us."

Strategic man, Mr. Hogg, sending his own driver – carrying the commissioner's excuse for 'shine, and whose car Harvey Essex would never bother to search – up into Ocoee. Back when Jesse and his brothers were young, Silas had set up camp at the peak of a well-placed hillside and started distributing moonshine throughout three states. By now the man paid well, keeping the business of a few old moonshining families quite healthy. Silas was the main reason the Dukes could afford to keep up payments on all of their land, hadn't sold parcels off like so many other local families were forced to do. If Boss could take Silas' business from the Dukes, the commissioner would earn a lot of money up front, and that would be a start. But the end goal was most likely buying up bits of the Duke farm until the Boss Hogg owned it all and could turn it into a shopping mall or a brewery, or maybe a fancy housing project. Didn't matter what Boss did with it, his plans for the property probably changed on a daily basis. Mostly, it would put a permanent end to Duke moonshine in Hazzard, leaving Boss with something close to a monopoly on the area.

"All right, Daisy. Thanks," he said, and nearly lost both arms in the process.

"Thanks? Ain't you going to do nothing about it?" said the cousin with the fingernails.

"Luke?" came from the one threatening to break his arm with the way he was leaning the better part of his weight against it.

"All right, I said." A man needed quiet to—"I'll come up with something. Just," and he took both his arms back, figured he was probably going to need them for some part of the night. "Let me think."

That, and walking away, bought him all of a half hour. Then Bo was back, hanging at the edges of Luke's vision, waiting for the ax to stop chopping, watching for a break to come in Luke's concentration. Luke grabbed the split pieces of log, stacking them on the pile. "You could help me here," he suggested.

Bo came closer and held out his hand for the ax; made Luke smile. Bo's method of assistance meant taking the ax from him, putting it aside, and asking for the plan. Luke indulged him, then took the General's keys out of his hand.

Next time he heard his cousin's voice it was a reminder over the C.B.: "Don't let Enos hold you up out there, Luke." Funny how it had gone to Bo's head, admitting that the kid (who was nineteen Luke had to keep reminding himself, and someday he'd have to get around to thinking of Bo as more than his little cousin) was the better driver and should stay in Tilly with the 'shine while Luke ran interference in the General. Now Bo had the nerve to think he had smarts, too, giving orders.

"You just worry about yourself," he said into his own C.B. handset. "I been driving since you was still figuring out how to handle yourself on a bicycle." And then he deliberately cut his wheels to take Sandbottom Road, where, if he had any sense, Enos was waiting for a moonshine runner to come flying past. "I'm gone." And he was, out of radio contact for this part of the trip, because he needed to monitor the police channel.

Moments later he'd gotten Enos to chase on the General's tailpipe just as easily as a rabbit could entice a coyote to follow on its scent. Luke drove like he had something to lose if he got caught, allowed his heartbeat to soar and adrenalin to get the better of him. Fishtailed around two sandy bends then cut his headlights, listening to Enos blabber on the police band.

"Yes, sir Sheriff! I got them Duke boys pinned down on Sandbottom Road, if you'd just take the shortcut across Snake Road, we'll have them!"

"Enos!" came the counter-command. "Don't be, now don't be telling me what I gotta do. I'm your superior officer, you hear me?"

"Yes sir, Sheriff I was only thinking—"

"Now Enos I don't want you thinking. You understand me? No thinking. Now what I'm gonna do, see, is I'm gonna cut across Snake Road. You stay behind them, and chase them right up to me. This way we're gonna get 'em, we'll get 'em, and then I'm gonna cuff 'em and stuff 'em." Somewhere around there, the conversation descended from English to babble, but Luke couldn't care less. He swerved off Sandbottom Road and onto an old footpath that led down to the lake. He wasn't going all the way down to the water though, just far enough to get off the road and pull up the parking brake. Had to keep his right foot away from the brake pedal, since they hadn't bothered to disconnect it from General's taillights. Luke counted seconds until he saw the flashing lights go by him on the road, then heard the bending metal as two police cruisers met at high speed, not a half mile away.

"You all right Rosco?" he called into his C.B. mic.

"Of course I'm all right. You Duke boys, you just—"

But Luke had no time to find out what he and Bo just were. So he switched back to the Dukes' customary 'shine running channel and said, "Meet you at the Switchback Road, cuz." Got his 10-4, then backed out of his little corner of nowhere to head for the Tennessee state line. Bo, meanwhile, was driving straight up Route 36 at a perfectly legal fifty-five and no concern about law enforcement on his back door.

It was a good forty-five minutes later when Luke came to the dark Chevy, parked sideways across the Switchback Road, at the pass. Up there, the road was narrow enough that no one could get around that vehicle without running into stone on the one side, or flying off into the great beyond on the other. Stopped a safe three car lengths away, and waited.

Harvey Essex revealed himself in the General's headlights, walking the yellow line in the middle of the road, heading for Luke in the driver's side window. That hand poised near his waist, that wasn't good.

"Hey Harve," he called out the window with a casual delivery to put the man at ease and keep him from drawing that gun Luke reckoned he wanted in his hands right about now.

"Luke," was the answer back to him, trying to sound like a tough revenuer in control of the situation, not a frightened man standing alone in the dark, waiting for whatever manner of moonshiner's tricks might get pulled on him at any time. "You got a new car, son?"

Son. Yeah, Harvey was kind of a paternal figure, in that he'd taught Luke more than he meant to about how to be a decent 'shine runner. Going up against Harvey Essex was always good for making up new tricks on the fly.

"This here's the General Lee. Me and Bo built his engine, and got his body from the junk yard." It was only polite to introduce complete strangers, after all.

"Real nice," Harvey said, but he couldn't have cared less about the car. "Speaking of Bo, where is he?"

Luke shrugged and gave the revenuer a conspiratorial smile and wink. "Out with a girl." Named Tilly, but Harvey hadn't asked for details.

He got a solemn nod for that, then, "I'm gonna need you to get out of the car, Luke. Now." Serious, so very guarded and vigilant that Luke wanted to laugh.

"All right, Harve," he agreed instead. "But it's best that you know that this car's doors are welded shut. I'm coming out the window."

"All right," was an acceptance of the information at face value. Took a second or two, as Luke wiggled his way up into the doorframe before Harvey's real feelings made themselves known. "Welded shut. Why on earth would you do that, Luke?"

"It's a race car." Of course Harvey knew nothing about that kind of thing. For the revenuer, a car was just as much of a tool as his gun. He didn't love it so much as make good use of it. "It's to protect us and give the car stability on the track."

"You just get out here now, and take two steps away from that car," was all business. "Race car? You boys been racing?" And that there was country friendliness, sometimes known as prying into other people's business.

"Yep. In fact," and Luke swung down to his feet before patting Harvey on the shoulder. Didn't so much put the man at ease as make him stare at Luke like he'd grown an extra head. "You just caught me practicing for Saturday's Hatchapee Derby. Me and Bo's favored to win."

"Uh-huh." Harvey wasn't impressed. "You got any weapons in the car?"

"Just my bow and arrows. There in the back seat. You can get them out if you want. Just bend yourself into that back window there, and—"

"No thank you, Luke. I'd just as soon you got them out. Nice and slow." Because a revenuer should never turn his back to a potential suspect. "Don't make me draw my gun on you now."

"No, sir," Luke answered, wide-eyed innocence oozing from every pore. "Wouldn't think of it." And he reached into the General's back window to pull out the bow, all slow and careful-like, hands visible at all times. "See here, these arrows ain't even tipped. They just got flares on 'em, for when we go hunting. It's how me and Bo find each other if we got separated. We'll shoot an arrow into the air and—"

"Fine, Luke, that's just fine. You just go stand by my car now, while I search your trunk."

"The trunk," Luke swallowed hard. "You really got to search the trunk? I just told you it's a race car. Ain't nothing back there but the spare. Well, that and the jack, and the tire iron."

"You just step over by my car, son." That, in fluent revenuer, was an order.

"Yes, sir." Luke stood about where he was told, watching carefully as Harvey popped the latch and leaned over the General's wide trunk.

"You ain't," Luke started, glancing around nervously. "You ain't got to go looking in the corners or nothing. Or pulling up the carpet that was so hard to get put in right in the first place. There ain't nothing much in there."

Harvey was done talking, now he was sniffing into the darkest recesses of the General's trunk. Which was fine by Luke, gave him a minute to pull an arrow out of his quiver, set it loose in his bow. Holding both bow and arrow with his left forefinger, Luke unsnapped his knife case with his right. Pulled out his unopened knife, and struck its blunt edge against the end of the flare until it sparked up. Dropped the knife back into its case before pulling the bowstring taut and letting his arrow fly high into the sky. Soon as it was loose, he dropped the bow down to his side and watched the flash of light get smaller as it arced out over the hillside.

"What was that?" Harvey was asking.

"What was what?"

"That… light."

"That? Oh that was a shooting star. Pretty one, too. Harve," he suggested. "You'd probably best step off to the side of the road."

"What?" he was asking over the growing volume of engine hum, when Luke ran up and grabbed him by the elbow.

"Come on, over here," Luke said as he shoved them both down onto the gravel that lined the outer rim of the curved road.

There were no lights, only sounds followed by louder ones. Engine revving, tires squealing, and a good, solid crash of metal on metal. Harvey laid flat on the ground, hands covering his own head for protection.

"Sorry about your car, Harvey," Luke whispered, close to the man's ear, before pulling himself up, tossing his bow into the still-open trunk and slamming it, then jumping into the General's driver's side window. Right about the time the engine roared to life and he cut the wheels to pull across the road and slide through the gap Bo had opened by slamming the revenuer's car halfway off the road, Luke checked his rearview mirror to see Harvey Essex sitting up from the ground in dazed confusion. He hit the General's horn, serenading the revenuer, himself, Bo up ahead, and any birds that might have been nesting in nearby trees, with the first few notes of _Dixie_.

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January 1975

Moonshine delivery was a fine training ground. Mainly it was a place to practice fearlessness, because everything else just came down to instinct, and a man either had it or didn't. Luke had it, had plenty, but it all got mixed up with too much thinking.

Jesse had been livid about Luke's thinking when it came to that run last month up into Tennessee. Neither him nor Luke understood why they were being treated to the wrath of Jesse, not after they'd outsmarted the Sheriff's Department and the revenuer both, then kept the family business alive by beating Boss's driver up to old Silas. But they'd gotten threatened with the strap as they stood there banging the dings out of Tilly's front end, then told in no uncertain terms that they were never to make a moonshine run in two separate cars again.

"We Dukes is family," Jesse'd thundered at them. "We stay together. Always."

"But Jesse," Luke had answered, because he was so damn smart that he knew better than their uncle. For all his intelligence, Luke was a fool when it came to taking a lecture. Man could learn a little something about lowering his eyes and his voice and just saying _yes, sir_. Because in the end, after all the arguing, that was what he was going to do anyway. "We was together. We was never more than a couple of miles apart, at most."

"A couple of miles ain't together. Now don't you go sassing me no more, Luke." And this was the main problem with the way Luke argued back. Jesse was red in the face now, giving all the appearance of a heart-attack in progress. "Or I'll take you over my knee, and don't you think I won't. I want you boys in the same car. Always. You understand me?"

"Yes, sir." And there it was, just a few minutes too late.

Besides, Jesse's rules were fine with Bo. For all his natural instincts, Bo was just a better driver with Luke there in the passenger seat, nagging at him. Two complaining words back to back and Bo could simply hit the accelerator and go.

Like now.

Cutting off Cooter didn't seem fair, not after he'd gone and found the General's chassis for them. But it was an unfortunate necessity to win this here race. And their friend wouldn't mind, he'd do the same if he had half the skills. Brody got sent off into a ditch by his own greedy speed on the fourth turn, and that fool from Hatchapee, Emmet Sanders, lost his radiator, looked like. Nothing between the General's nose and the finish line now, with their next nearest competition, Daisy's boyfriend-turned-fiancé, L.D., a good six car lengths back. Bo could have left him hanging on a wall, probably should have, but Daisy'd asked them to be nice. So he was. Perfectly polite in beating the pants off the guy.

"Yee-haw!" was just celebrating their victory, even if Luke was over there with a squint-eyed wince on his face. Heck, that was as close to a smile as Luke got.

Which was why, after the trophy was handed over, and the beer was flowing (through his hair, thanks to Luke, but that was all right, it was a sign of Luke's affection for him, really), all the girls flocked to him. A genuine smile, a sweet temperament and a pretty face meant all the more girls for him. And one or two to spare for Luke.

Yeah, moonshine running was good practice, but the Duke boys' future lay in racing.


	4. Insulting, Annoying & Natural as Breath

_**Author's note:** Thanks for sticking with me on this one. _

_Because they never get busted, these boys are a bit different than the one's we came to know over the course of the series. And because they don't become those particular members of Hazzard's society, everyone else in the county is affected as well. Things that canon says are supposed to happen don't end the same way they did in the series, as you'll see in this chapter._

_Changed by circumatances or not, the characters are still not owned by me (and Big Jim Downey is borrowed from_ Granny Annie_). Nor do I earn from writing about them._

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**Chapter Four - Insulting, Annoying and as Natural as Breathing**

February 1985

"My, my," Miss Lulu is gushing, looking just about the same as she always has. Boss's death doesn't show in her face half so much as in her brother's. "Ain't you boys just as handsome as can be."

Bo's pleading eyes are scanning the room for refuge, wanting to be saved out of the clutches of the lady's pinching fingertips, but Luke can't really see any reason that he needs to get involved. Bo's just as handsome as he's ever been; a bit wider in the jaw maybe, a touch less blonde now that he's not spending summers out working in the sun. Still, Luke's sure that smile can still charm the girls right out of the stands and into whatever hotel room Bo might be staying in while he's on the road. If it also makes Lulu Hogg feel like a giddy schoolgirl again, that's just the penitence that pretty-boy has to pay.

"Yes, Ma'am," Bo grimaces.

"Cookie?" Luke offers, taking over the hosting duties while Daisy and Enos make eyes at each other as if they're teenagers again. Seems like they would have gotten that out of their systems years ago; then again, Enos is the same naïve little boy he's always been when it comes to Daisy, and just being around that kind of adoration makes the girl flush up into a healthy pink like she hasn't since before L.D. broke her heart. Or maybe just hurt her pride, doesn't seem like L.D. ever really had much of a hold on her heart to break it.

"Ijit!" Rosco answers in the unfortunate stuttering speech impediment that seems to have come to dominate him over the past ten years.

"Why, thank you, Luke," Lulu says, overly gracious. She releases Bo's face and scowls at her brother as she takes one of Daisy's lovingly baked chocolate chip cookies off of the plate Luke's holding out to her.

"Thank you, Luke," Rosco echoes. "Er, no." Which just goes to show that after all these years, Rosco still doesn't fully trust the Dukes. Might just be the most hopeful sign for this town that Luke's seen since he got back here. Insulting and annoying and just as natural as breathing, is the sheriff's continuation of a feud that has nothing to do with any of their lives today. And though Boss Hogg considered Jesse Duke his sworn enemy Luke reckons their genuine rivalry ended the day the Dukes ran their last batch of 'shine. It wasn't his rivals that did Boss in, it was his 'business partners.' That and his own greed. The story was never clear, the only men who ever knew the whole sequence were J.D. Hogg and Big Jim Downey, one of whom is now dead and the other not likely to tell the incriminating parts in hopes he might just get parole some day. But the rumor Jesse heard was that it had happened over counterfeiting plates, promised by Boss Hogg and never delivered. Gunshot, execution style, and it was only the sheriff's dogged pursuit of the facts that managed to get Jim Downey charged and convicted.

But Rosco's willing to forget all that and go one resenting the Dukes for a rivalry that ended ten years ago. It's almost touching.

Lulu and her brother settle on the sofa together, see-saw fashion, with Rosco getting the higher ground. Daisy peels her eyes away from Enos long enough to nudge Luke as a reminder that he's the closest thing to a patriarch that the family has got now. So he tips the jug of 'shine – must've been stored away on this property since before him and Bo left Hazzard – pours it into six mason jars, and passes them around.

"A toast," he says, because it's what Jesse would do if he were here. "To the bride and groom."

He watches as Lulu tilts her jar, swallowing as expertly as a lifelong 'shine drinker, and she probably is. Rosco, meanwhile, sniffs suspiciously at the liquid in front of him, then puts it down without taking the tiniest sip. Even innocent Enos manages a swig of the stuff, but Rosco's not going to try it.

Picturing him and Lulu as kids, under one roof with their parents and uptight sister Hortense, well that's close to impossible. He wonders idly as he drinks down his own mouthful of 'shine, then offers seconds to anyone that wants some, whether Lulu used to look out for her baby brother, decking any bullies that picked on him at school, then bandaging his scraped knees. And whether, now, they ever talk about those days, whether the sheriff winds up pestering her with silly worries about their father and if he'd he be proud of them now.

All right, so Bo's question is nagging at him, might have been bothering him for years before his cousin even got around to asking it. Why Bo thinks Luke's got the answer to that one, he may never figure out. Only thing he knows for sure is that this generation's Duke boys have lived longer than their fathers did, and that was maybe the most important thing his uncle ever asked of him. To do whatever it took to keep both him and Bo alive.

As for the rest of it, yeah, Jesse probably _would_ be glad to see Daisy settle with Enos, if he could witness the way that finally giving in to things that are good for her makes the girl glow. There's no doubt in Luke's mind that the man who adored her most would have been proud to watch her get married in Lavinia's wedding dress, which his niece has dug out of attic storage, cleaned, and tailored to fit her own thin frame. Their uncle probably would have wanted her to stay on Duke land and raise her children, but that part's already settled. Daisy and Enos will live in town, close to his work. (And unless the deputy manages to stop twitching over there and get over his virginal ways, there'll be no children anyway.)

And Bo, yeah, Jesse'd be happy about how he's turned out. Self-sufficient in a way he never used to be, strong, healthy, and every bit as good-hearted as he was at five. Just look at how he's charming Miss Lulu over there, with the same kind of sweet, tolerant patience that Jesse used to show Emma Tisdale. Making the poor widow lady feel young and beautiful.

If Jesse were here, he'd be toasting Daisy and clapping Bo on the back. As to Luke, his uncle would treat him well and fairly. But he'd still have that suspicious eye on him, wondering whether Luke would cause the end of the Duke family line.

* * *

March 1975

It was a fine track, gave Bo good vibes before he even took his practice lap. Hard packed red clay, dry, winding through trees and rocks, even a few good ramps in there in case he needed them. Off their home turf and in Sweetwater, which meant no Hazzard tricks from the likes of Boss Hogg. Pretty girls lining the route, just far enough away that every single one of them was perfect – long, slender bodies absolutely undulating with excitement about what was coming. This was going to be his day, his and Luke's, Bo could just feel it.

"Don't," Luke was warning him, while sliding his helmet over his head and looking every bit as attractive as an egg. "Start picking out your prize," indicating the girls, "until you've won the race." Bo had to slap Luke's hands away when they came over to fasten his chin strap for him. He could do that fine all by himself, when he was good and ready. And that wouldn't be until after he finished checking out that one sweet thing, bending forward and reaching for nothing on the ground in front of her, conveniently leaving her halter top hanging in a most revealing way. Luke had it all wrong, the girl got picked out before, the trophy got picked up after.

"Relax, cousin," he answered, heard his own voice coming from some other, dreamed up, part of the landscape. "This one's in the bag."

"Which? The girl or the race?" It was good natured, though.

"Both," and Bo looked at Luke finally, seeing that crooked smile that mostly came out when Luke was having dirty thoughts of his own.

"Which one you got your eye on?" Bo asked, and somewhere in the distance a man's voice called something about _on your mark_. Bo's left hand snapped his chin strap in place while the right hovered over the stick shift.

"That one down there, next to Billy Kaye," Luke answered, not pointing, just staring off in that direction, hard. It was the kind of look that left Bo glad he wasn't a girl and getting scrutinized by those piercing blue eyes.

The flag came down, so Bo stomped on the accelerator while casting a glance over at the pretty little filly Luke had picked out for himself. Choked while trying to hold back the laugh that rose into his chest. "Her? Luke, she ain't but about four feet tall!"

There was a blue car, number 32, crowding in from the left, trying to take the inside of the first turn. "Watch him," Luke said unnecessarily, considering Bo had seen him first. Local talent, probably, not used to races with the big boys. Reckless and foolish and the poor sucker got himself shoved to the outside lane by the smallest twist of Bo's fingers. "She's just compact, Bo. All the proportions are right."

How was a man supposed to control his laughter when Luke went and said things like that? Bo let loose with a high pitched giggle that he knew would cut through the sound of wind gusting into their windows.

"Which one – watch him – which one was you looking at?"

Bo swerved around the next offending driver, a simpleton who had no instinct for the angle of the bank on the upcoming turn and wound up careening off the track. Obviously the guy's style was to drive using his eyes, not his gut, to read the lay of the course. Bo could beat that kind with one hand tied behind his back. "That one up front, blonde, in the halter top."

"Powder blue halter top? Bending over?" Bo nodded his response while cutting his wheel to the left to keep Cooter from sneaking up on him from around that side. If the man had any sense, he'd stop entering races where he had to compete against the Dukes, what with the way he had no chance of winning them.

Luke was plastered back to his seat, head back and paralyzed by his own amusement. Bo twisted the wheel again, other direction and fishtailing, for no better reason than to jostle Luke around in his seat.

"What's wrong with her?" he demanded as they hit the long straightaway.

"Nothing," Luke answered, all innocence and just as sweet as honey topped with molasses. "I'm sure she's real smart, too."

"She ain't got to be smart, Luke." And it was a fool that wanted a smart woman, anyway, demanding as she was bound to be. The pretty ones, girls who didn't think about much more than how nice it felt to cuddle themselves up against a real racecar driver, they were better than whatever geniuses Luke went looking for. Their heads cocked back to look up into his eyes, little fingers reaching up to touch his hair (_so soft_, they'd say, _so pretty_) while he glanced down at their soft curves, exceedingly perfect when viewed from that angle – that was what Bo sought in a girl.

"Just willing." Luke agreed, or pretended to, anyway. "Take the high part of this curve," he advised pointlessly, considering Bo was planning to do that, anyway. There was gravel, what the pros called marbles, at the bottom of the bank that he would have avoided even without getting nagged by the man to his right. "She's too skinny," was his cousin's next brilliant insight.

And that was just sour grapes. Because Luke's chosen girl, she was—"Yours is dumpy. No legs, no hips or waist, just straight up and down." Which kind of described Luke, too, come to think of it.

"Them two up there…" Luke was pointing out a pair of cars ahead, dueling for the lead, bashing into each other's front quarter panels. Problem was, one of them was going to lose a tire what with the friction caused by the hanging metal of the car's frame grazing against the rubber tread there.

"Yeah, hold on," Bo answered back, lining himself up to hit that rise right in front of them, launching the General over the squabble, then watching the inevitable, fiery crash that resulted from two cars skimming along too close together. It was the kind of pushing and shoving that only worked if both cars were in good shape, but as soon as that tire blew—well the Dukes watched the aftermath through their rear window. "That must've hurt," Bo commented as the General rebounded with its own, echoing, crunch.

Luke nodded. "Crew's there, though. They got 'em."

"And we got this race," Bo grinned back at him. The General's engine was singing their song, and there was no one left between them and the finish line now. Everyone behind would have to slow down to get around the wreck.

"So long as you hold her steady," Luke agreed. Funny how his cousin sometimes forgot the General was a boy.

"Tell you what," was Bo's compromise. "You take your girl out, and I'll go out with mine. Then tonight we'll compare notes." Because there in the dark, laying four feet apart, things got real honest. No girl was half as pretty or sweet as she appeared in the light, nor lived up to the promise that her body offered when she stood at the rim of a dirt track.

But when the Dukes hit that finish line with wheel-spinning flare and a one-eighty spin just for show, after they received their trophy, shook hands, and Luke smiled at him in that way he only did after a race like today's, when they climbed down from the platform where they'd been handed their gleaming cup, beer they'd dumped on each other's heads dripping through their hair, soaking through their coveralls and trickling frigidly down their spines, it wasn't a girl that met them at the bottom of the steps.

* * *

April 1975

Bo was the same idiot he'd ever been, a fool in love, just not with a pair of tits this time. Dave Silverman showed up at two more races since that one in Sweetwater, flirting with Bo just as shamelessly as any girl ever had, overt in what he wanted, immune to Luke's dissuasion. This time, right here in Hazzard, in front of all their friends and enemies, standing right there in the Boar's Nest parking lot, he waved a contract in their faces.

Luke couldn't take the man seriously, couldn't respect anyone who would wear a white silk shirt to a dirt track race in the heat of Georgia spring. Concentric sweat circles bloomed out from under each of his arms, and beads peppered with flecks of red clay rolled down into those thick, dark eyebrows, hanging there until the man dabbed at them with a matching silk handkerchief. Left an orange stain behind on all that pretty cloth, and Luke couldn't figure out why a grown man would dress like that on purpose, not unless it was Sunday and he was under serious threat of being on the wrong end of a whipping. At least he'd loosened his tie a notch, that was about the only thing that made him more human than reptilian.

"Luke," he called, because Bo was already sold, would follow the man for miles, trail him just like a puppy-dog so long as there was the promise of NASCAR at the end. Skinny, like no man should be, no muscle and no meat. Standing there with a tight smile and close to a ream of papers in his hand.

"No, Dave." They were the same words he'd said to the man a month ago, beer drying into a sticky mess in his hair and on his skin. _No, we ain't for sale, we ain't interested in driving for you or nobody else_ to be precise. Meanwhile Bo had been saying yes with his big, round eyes, and eager hands grabbing Dave's in a hearty handshake. Just about drooling at the prospect, listening to tales of life on the road with a rapt attention that would leave Bo's old schoolteachers envious. And then arguing with Luke all the way home.

Next time they'd met Dave, after taking the honors in Chickasaw, he'd brought them some newspaper clippings. He just owned the cars, he promised. Didn't try to manage his drivers, just left them to their own skills. He liked the Dukes, particularly because there were two of them and he knew wouldn't ever have to worry about them, they'd look out for each other. Plus he'd have an automatic backup driver in Luke. Bo pored over the pictures, read through the names of drivers and probably imagined his own at the top of the list. Luke strongly suggested that Dave was wasting his time.

"I don't understand," Bo had snapped at him later, over the ruts of dirt they'd been plowing. "Why you got to go dismissing Dave's offer without even talking about it. You don't like him, fine. That don't mean the offer ain't gonna be good."

Luke snorted back, then used the rein in his hand to swat Maudine's flank. "Don't matter what the offer is, Bo. We leave here and we can kiss the moonshine business goodbye. You think Jesse can keep it up without us?" And without Daisy, either; engaged now, she'd be married and living in Sweetwater by next month.

Bo took a swig from his canteen and kept pace with Luke and their mule as they plowed along. "Want some?" he offered, but Luke shook his head. Wasn't anything but backwash by now, the way Bo'd been gulping it down. "Listen, Luke, if we take the offer, we won't need no moonshine business. You saw what that guy was dressed like, the car he was driving." Yeah, Luke saw the silly little Fiat Spyder the man had to fold himself into. It was the kind of thing Daisy would love, and she should. It was a girl's car if ever Luke saw one. "The guy's rich."

There was a bone-jarring clunk vibrating up through the plow until Luke couldn't control it anymore, had to let it go and, "Whoa," call Maudine to a halt.

"You're supposed to be watching for rocks, Bo," he snapped, tired of how easily Bo's brain was called away to dreaming.

"It must've been underground, Luke. I didn't see it."

Of course he hadn't, he'd been too busy talking Luke's ear off about things that weren't important, not when it came right down to it.

"It don't matter how rich he is, Bo," Luke said, forcing them back to the more important conversation anyway, and giving Maudine a rest. "Lots of men are rich, and they have a bunch of poor people that work for them. Moonshining, it's a Duke tradition, and when we do it, we ain't got no one to answer to for it, and no one takes a cut off the top. Dave, he makes money for sitting in some booth at the top of the stands, watching other men drive."

Bo shook his head, muttering something about the stubbornness of mules and cousins. Not quite under his breath, just enough voice behind it so Luke could hear.

"Bet we could make more from driving for Dave than we do making moonshine," Bo had challenged next. "And Jesse could retire. Don't you think our uncle deserves that much, Luke? After all these years of taking care of us?"

"Don't," Luke had said, voice low enough that it couldn't be called yelling, was much closer to a whisper. "You go making me feel guilty about Jesse. What he's doing now, what we're gonna inherit from him, that's Duke family tradition, Bo. It's more important than standing on some platform, holding a trophy and waiting for the girls to show up and drool all over you."

And there it came, Bo's accusatory finger, pointing right at Luke's chest. "This ain't about girls and you know it." Luke knew nothing of the sort. "It's about… dang it, Luke, I don't even know what it's about. Maybe you're just scared to leave home." Yeah, that was exactly it. After Vietnam, North Carolina was a truly frightening prospect.

"I ain't scared," Luke answered him back, same sensible, quiet tone to his voice that he always used when trying to talk horse sense to a jackass.

"Good," Bo had snapped back at him. "Then you'll wait until we get an offer from Dave before you make up your mind."

Luke hadn't agreed to those conditions, not exactly. Bo had stormed off without bothering to listen to whether Luke had something more to say.

Which was why he felt justified in telling Dave no now, sight unseen. But then Bo was there, with Jesse right behind. Introducing two men that had never met and then asking to see what the offer was.

And by that night, Jesse was pulling Luke aside, and telling him that he should look a mite harder at what Dave was offering them. "It could be a good thing for you boys, Luke."

The old man must've been losing his mind.


	5. It's a Good Thing to Know Who You Are

_**Author's note:** Yeah, this is a dark one. I probably should have confessed to that up front. (Maybe I did.) It may have started as an exploration of what would have happened if the boys had never been caught on that moonshine run, but it turned into something of a dissertation on what might have happened_ instead._ Subtle diference in words, big difference in the story._

_It is important to note that the past is as the boys remember it, looking back from all these years later. And their memories are as accurate or flawed as anyone else's, and just as much colored by their emotions at the time._

_As always, I own nothing but the idea. I rely a lot on different parts of canon -- for expample, in this case I went with the idea that Bo and Luke's parents died together, and Daisy's died at a different time. That sequence of events seems to be supported in **Farewell Hazzard**. And Daisy's impending marriage to Enos in this story matches the timing of the episode **Enos and Daisy's Wedding**._

_Thnaks for sticking with me, and thanks especially to those who review._

* * *

**Chapter Five -- It's a Good Thing to Know Who You Are**

February 1985

Luke's turtle impression has long since gotten boring. Bo never was one of those kids who wanted a pet that spent most of the day tucked into a hard shell, maybe poking its head out at night just long enough to eat. Dogs, for all their noisiness and half-baked toilet training habits, are at least known to bark in greeting and lick a man's hand from time to time. Luke just drifts as far off into the distance as he can while sitting not ten feet away on the weather-worn and rickety old front porch. It's been one thing to miss a man that's a couple of thousand miles away, only seen for a day or two here and there. It's something else to put up with Luke fading away like a plain vanilla sunset, dull yellows and browns and not even worth watching.

There was a moment, this afternoon up at the old graveyard, when Luke was right there with him. Maybe he didn't say much of anything, but he was present in ways he hasn't been since… maybe since they left Hazzard, almost ten years ago. Reminding Bo of what it was like to have a cousin that close to him, just the smallest testament to a past he's just about given up on as childhood fairy-tale, complete with _O__nce Upon a Time_.

And now that he's had a chance, fleeting as it was, to revisit what it was like to have Luke right there with him, he reckons he's tired of being treated to a shell of the cousin that he remembers having spent the best days of his life with.

"Luke," he says, and has nothing more to follow it. Which seems fine at first, when there's no sign he's been heard. After half a minute of silence, however, Luke turns from where he's sitting on the steps to look up at Bo leaning against the doorframe. Bright blue eyes, just staring at him, seeing through to the nervous little boy at his core, the one that's been waiting all these years for Luke to leave him behind and go off to play with the big kids.

"What?" finally gets growled at him. Or maybe just asked, it's hard to tell when he's waiting so hard for Luke to yell at him or send him away—

"You happy? In Montana?"

That gets him snorted at. Clearly the question's not even worth committing a full out laugh to. "Happy ain't got nothing to do with it, Bo. I work there, is all." And that's the extent of what Luke has to say on the subject.

"If you ain't happy, why do you stay?"

A long-suffering sigh, and Luke answers, "I never said I wasn't happy. Just that happy ain't got nothing to do with it."

Well, that clears it right up. Luke's at his communicative best. "Luke," comes out more annoyed than he wants it to, maybe. His cousin probably expects he'll throw up his hands in frustration and walk away soon. But if there's one thing that driving around in circles for ten years has taught him, it's how to be patient. Sort of. "Uncle Jesse would have wanted us all to be happy. If you ain't…" _why don't you just come home_, is what he wants to say. Because Luke never would have left Hazzard if not for Bo. And if the last time he was anything other than surly was in those days of living here and running moonshine, well there's nothing keeping him from coming right back and starting the family business up all over again.

"Uncle Jesse wanted us to be safe, Bo." More Luke Duke logic there. "He wanted us to go off to NASCAR, and we did. Just—leave it at that."

He'd like to, maybe. It would be easier, but it could be that he's been taking the easy way out for too long. Then again, seems like Luke's been holding him responsible for decade-old decisions, and there's no reason any mistakes can't be rectified now. If Luke will stop holding pointless grudges.

"You never wanted to go to NASCAR, though." It's neutral, maybe just looking for confirmation of what he already knows.

"No," Luke agrees. "I didn't."

"You went for me, and I'm sorry about that, cousin, I really am. I thought you'd enjoy it after we got there."

"Bo—"

"No, Luke, just listen to me. I thought it would get better for you. And when it didn't, when you left… you could have just come home. I don't understand why you didn't just—but you didn't. So stop blaming me for what you decided not to do." It's supposed to be a calm speech, the kind of thing a man of thirty can deliver without his voice shaking. It fails.

"Bo, it wasn't—"

"I'm sorry, Luke, all right? I didn't think you'd be so miserable, especially not for this long. If I'd known—if I'd had any idea you'd hate me all these years later, I wouldn't have asked you to go, hell, I would have stayed here myself." And that's the truth; if he could take back all the nagging and arguing he would – just to have Luke back.

"I ain't never hated you, Bo." It's said so quietly, with such deadly control to Luke's voice, and it's more condemning than if he'd yelled it.

"Like hell!" So much for sounding like a mature man. That there was close to a sob (maybe even was a sob, his throat's tight and sore, and no amount of swallowing will loosen it up). Still, it's not all in vain, this loss of control. It's gotten Luke to his feet, moving toward him. He braces for Luke's temper, for the punch that never comes.

"I ain't never," and it's a tight little sound, punctuated by Luke grabbing his shoulders, pinning him back against the doorframe. "Hated you, Bo."

Held there in front of Luke, no place to hide the redness of his face or the wetness of his eyes, Bo just answers, "You could have fooled me." He might have wanted to scream it, to see Luke flinch back away from the noise, but it doesn't quite come out that way. And Luke's reaction isn't he might have hoped for, more of a wince than a cringe, followed by a tolerant, semi-patient sigh.

"You didn't make me go to NASCAR, Bo. You didn't have nothing to do with it."

If that's an attempt at comforting him, it fails. "You would never have left if not for—"

"Jesse," Luke barks over him, first loud thing he's had to say in… as far as Bo knows, nine years. "Jesse—would Jesse be proud of us now? I don't know, Bo, maybe. But," Luke's fingers are clenching and releasing on Bo's shoulders now, it hurts, but it's contact, the real thing, Luke touching him like they used to, so Bo just stands there and lets him do it. "It wasn't you that made me go to NASCAR." Stands there and says nothing because the man in front of him is present in a way Bo hasn't seen in years. He's not hiding in a shell or turning a cold shoulder, he's… "You want to know, Bo? Why I went to NASCAR with you?" It's a challenge, left over from their childhood, maybe. _You really want to hear this? You think you're man enough?_

"Yeah," Bo fires back, proving himself to be either fearless or a fool. "I want to know. You say it wasn't me? I want to know what it was then."

Luke sighs, drops his hands off Bo's shoulders, shakes his head. It's got to be spending too much time here in Hazzard, or maybe it's that Daisy's finally getting married to a man she loves. Something's loosened Luke's tongue that's been held in check for years. "Jesse," deep breath. "My father—"

* * *

April 1975

"Pass me some wood, Luke," Jesse asked from all of a foot away. Luke had already spent most of the night stirring mash until he reckoned he'd strained every muscle in his shoulders. Funny how one tiny repeating motion could tax him more than carrying dozens of forty pound bags of seed ever did. Might just go to show that stirring pots was women's work and it should be Daisy that was up here helping Jesse right now. Except the girl had never been allowed to get near this kind of cooking, no matter how hard she'd begged or how many times she'd proved herself capable.

Besides, Luke was only here so that Jesse could lecture him. He just wished the old man would get around to it before his legs went completely numb from sitting on a stump and waiting for it.

Which maybe explained the roughness with which he tossed the logs to his uncle. He liked making moonshine just fine; it was the cooling his heels on the way to be taken down a peg or two that he wasn't so fond of.

"Luke," came the warning. "You learn that in the Marines?" That same old accusation. Every behavior his uncle didn't approve of must have been taught by drill instructors, or maybe bunkmates. Couldn't have been anything Luke picked up in Hazzard (and in truth, he didn't have the first clue where he'd learned it, his inclination toward temper – but the old man was right, he hadn't learned it at home).

"No, sir," he answered, sufficiently contrite to get his uncle's glaring eyes to move on, turning back to the fire he'd been about to stoke.

"You and Bo been fighting a lot lately, ain't you?" Oh, the old man was good at this, with his calm and casual delivery, like it was the number of stars in the sky he was commenting on. _Millions of them up there, Luke, and you know better than to get riled up with your cousin like that – Dukes don't fight Dukes_.

"Not really," he answered. Fighting's a strong word. What was going on between the Duke boys was more like him setting Bo straight. Explaining priorities. Nothing different than he'd always done, it was just that this time it seemed to be taking more effort than usual.

"Luke." Funny how his uncle could use his name against him like that. Just one syllable, but it carried more warning than that high-pitched wheedling Jesse got to doing when he was bluffing. This here wasn't blowing smoke, it was deadly serious. "I might be getting older, but I ain't deaf, not yet. Nor dumb; I know fighting when I hear it."

"It ain't like that, Uncle Jesse." And there he was, reduced to his childhood again. Explaining how it wasn't what it looked like, and him and Bo didn't really steal those watermelons. They just… found them alongside the road, must have fallen off the truck. These discussions usually ended with a sore backside. "Bo, he's a fool. He thinks—he wants this NASCAR offer. It ain't no different from him wanting all them baseball cards when we was kids. Spent every nickel he could borrow, earn or find on them. And where are they now?" At the back of their closet maybe, or in the outhouse. "It's fun for him, Uncle Jesse. It ain't a trade. It ain't like moonshining."

"Moonshining," Jesse agreed, "has been in this family since we come to these parts." It was a familiar history lesson, maybe the only one Luke ever got to knowing by rote. "I reckon you figure it's your duty to carry on the family business."

"Mine and Bo's," he agreed, because they'd long ago been taught that it was a man's work, nothing Daisy should be doing for a living.

"Maybe you should take another look at that NASCAR offer, boy." It was said with a sternness that belied that first word. _Maybe_ was just a ribbon attempting to pretty up a box of obligation to make it look like a gift. "It looked pretty good to me."

"It don't matter what it looks like, Jesse," he informed his uncle. "It's a fine offer, but it ain't nothing me and Bo should do." His hands were frustrated with his mouth's slow progress in making the point, flew up of their own volition then came slapping back down onto his knees. "He's—it's all about cheering crowds to him, Jesse." And willing girls, but their uncle didn't need to hear about that part. "It's like wanting to be a professional baseball player back when he was eight. It ain't—" It wasn't about maturity, maybe was what he wanted to say. Or about taking care of family. It was just Bo being… Bo.

"Tradition," Jesse interrupted. "It's a good thing, Luke, to know who you are. Us Dukes been living here in Hazzard and making moonshine since as far back as we can remember. Old family bible by my bed dates us back to being older than that U.S. of A. Government. But I ain't telling you anything you don't already know." The old man sighed and sat down on the log that had been laying next to this still since Luke was a little boy, maybe longer.

"And it's nothing Bo don't know, neither," Luke reminded him. "Nothing he shouldn't be remembering instead of thinking he's some hotshot driver got to run around the country showing off."

"Well, now," and there was that tone, the one that wasn't threatening so much as mocking. "Maybe he just is a hotshot. Maybe he's a bigger hotshot than you are. This ain't like that time he wanted to play baseball. Back then you was a much better player than him, and you wasn't never going to be good enough to turn professional." Which was just a low blow, honestly. Luke had never even considered the idea; it was Bo that kept having unreasonable aspirations. "Maybe you just don't like that he's good enough to get this kind of an offer, that you'd be his backup driver."

Well. It was an interesting theory, even if it was entirely wrong. "It ain't like that. I ain't never argued that he's a better driver than me. But good as he is, this ain't nothing but a flight of fancy to him, Jesse! You know, well as I do, that this ain't gonna last and it ain't a trade he can pass on to his kids. It ain't like moonshining."

It was a rock solid argument, a fact that was reaffirmed by the way Jesse nodded, then hung his head. Not for long, in a second Luke was getting watched out of the corners of those well-worn eyes.

"Luke," he started, and the tone was different, not threatening nor lecturing. Just Jesse stating facts as he saw them. Shouldn't have made Luke nervous, but it did. "Moonshining ain't the same thing it was back when Dukes first started doing it. It ain't legal no more, for one thing."

"Ain't been legal for a lot of years now, Jesse." Didn't make any sense to start worrying about that kind of thing now.

"I know that." Interesting how, when the man turned to the side like that, in profile and with that beard, his mouth disappeared. Made it hard to read where this thing was going, left Luke with a sour stomach. "Don't you go sassing me boy," seemed like an afterthought, familiar and comforting to them both, maybe. "It ain't the same in other ways, neither. The cars ain't the same. Take your General Lee."

"The General ain't no kind of a 'shine runner." Seemed pointless to have to remind the man of that when he'd been the first one to complain about how welded doors meant a body couldn't get out fast enough to run away on foot, if need be. And gotten laughed at by Bo who informed him that there were no revenuers to run away from on a race track.

"No, I know he ain't, Luke. But he's fast, a lot faster than we used to go, even just fifteen years ago. And revenuer's cars, well they're faster, too." Jesse's hand zipped through the air, just in case Luke couldn't grasp the meaning of _fast_.

Maybe, just maybe, this would work up to being one of those all-night stories that Jesse liked to tell, warming himself by coals glowing under the kettle, just like Aunt Lavinia used to do by the fireplace. Main difference was that his aunt always wanted a little boy's head in her lap, claimed it made the tales come faster if she could run her hands through the hair of a child with an active imagination. Luke always figured she meant Bo, but every now and then she'd insist on holding onto him, instead.

Luke settled, stretching his legs out to be a little closer to that source of heat. For all that the days were starting to scorch, an April night in southern Appalachia could still leave a man shivering.

"It's good to know who you are, Luke, your heritage," Jesse started again, going over old ground. "And to know where you come from. Dukes has always made moonshine, my daddy before me, and your daddy before you. And your daddy, Luke, he was one of the best."

His daddy. Most of what he remembered about the man had to do with his knees, how Luke used to grab onto one or the other, putting both of his bare little feet onto one of his father's big ones, and hitching a ride. Just that and a deep voice, close to his ear. That could have been Jesse, though, it's hard to say – what with the sticky-sweet syrupy way all his early childhood memories cling together.

"Your daddy, he was too good at some things. Took his 'shine making skills to school with him." The night smelled of rotted leaves and rancid corn, made Jesse's chuckle sound dark instead of its usual nostalgic and warm. "Baked up something special in chemistry class, shared it around with some of the boys – and girls. Got himself expelled. I reckon he planned it that way." Smart guy, Luke should have thought of that one himself. "He was a decent wheelman, too. Could make and deliver his own 'shine before he was eighteen."

Coffee, he needed some. There was a thermos in the pickup; he could just stand up, walk over there and get a cup, except Jesse was talking again. Telling him things he'd never heard, about a ghost he'd barely known.

"Bo's daddy, he didn't start out quite so industrious, but he learned, he learned…" Jesse scratched at his beard for a bit, looking at nothing off in the black stillness of the woods. Maybe listening to an errant mourning dove that should have had its head under its wing, snoozing. Luke stayed still and quiet, reckoned that maybe the spell would be broken if he spoke up. Didn't like Jesse's demeanor, didn't want to know where this was going, and still relished every word that explained the past to him.

"Bo's daddy, he was older than your daddy. He had good endurance, could stay by a still and make sure that not a drop scorched. Meticulous, maybe. Made good 'shine, but he done it with his head, not his heart. Just like he done everything, I suppose. Steady and strong, that was Matthew. Acted that way in school, too, made it all the way through and got himself a diploma. First Duke to do that, and years later he named your cousin after General Beauregard. Your daddy had to ask him who that was," Jesse's head shook, stuck somewhere between amusement and exasperation, maybe.

"Your daddy, he had a bad habit of having to be the first to do everything. There wasn't even two years between Bo's daddy and Jimmy," that was Luke's father's name, he knew that and learned it all over again right there in that moment. Something different in how Jesse said it, gave it dimension, made his father step up out of old black and white pictures and become flesh, somehow. "Jimmy was always competing with him. I kind of figured he got himself kicked out of school so he could be done with it first. It was the only way he coulda done that. Got married first, had you a full two years before Bo's mama even got pregnant with him. Everything he did, he had to beat out Matthew.

"They was close and not, all at the same time. Went through everything together, just Jimmy first. And then Bo's daddy, he done made the mistake of a lifetime, only he didn't know that was what it was. Was Matthew that hooked us up with old Silas, up there in Ocoee. 'Cause for everything he had, smarts and ambition and driving talent, the one thing your daddy never had was any skill at all in dealing with people. Everyone else was just a fool, as far as your daddy was concerned. And that temper of his… well, he couldn't have negotiated that deal with Silas, even if Silas was stone drunk and your daddy had been offering him fresh-panned gold."

"You want some coffee, Jesse?" came blurting out of his mouth, maybe trying to put a bookmark in this part of the story, so they could close the cover now. Maybe it could be opened back up again, bit by bit, over the next hundred years or so.

Jesse shrugged, watching how the copper pot of the still never moved, just reflected the little sparks that escaped from the fire, rather than looking at Luke. "No, thank you. Luke, I know this ain't so easy to hear, but it's for the best that you do. You used to ask me, what was my daddy like, and I'd tell you how tall he was and how strong, that he had dark hair and wore glasses. You was satisfied with that for awhile, then later you started asking more about was he maybe the smartest of all his brothers, or maybe the best driver. I never told you much, figured you didn't need to know, then later on that it was all for the best if you didn't. And maybe I just didn't want to go thinking too hard on it myself. But watching you and Bo now… you need to know about this. So you go and get yourself some coffee if you want, but then you sit right back down here and hear the rest of what I've got to tell you."

Luke just shook his head. He had a pretty solid feeling that he wouldn't need any of that bitter tar in Jesse's thermos to keep himself awake through the rest of the night.

"Your Uncle Matthew, he come home happier'n a pig in slop, talking about how we had us a real distributor now, someone that would buy in bulk and make runs into counties we'd never have time to get into on our own. Meant we didn't have to spend as much time delivering, we could concentrate on the manufacturing side. Would be cheaper and we'd earn more and—" Jesse closed his eyes for a second, giving them a rest.

"Your daddy didn't like it one bit. He tried to convince the rest of us it was a bad idea, but we took a vote on it – there was the five of us working together back then, after your grandpappy done passed on – and it was four to one that we should let Silas distribute for us. Well, that only made Jimmy madder. He and Matthew started bickering and sniping, then doing petty things to each other. I came home one afternoon from a trip to town to find your Aunt Lavinia trying to break up a fight between them. Not an argument, neither, they was hitting each other like they meant it. Bloody and bruised, they was. I had never seen the like of it before.

"I sat them down and talked to them, but it wasn't like what your grandpappy would have done. He would've been able to make them work it out. Me, I just got them to stop hitting each other. They was still at odds. Jimmy reckoned on setting up a new still somewheres else, starting his own 'shine business. Competing against the rest of us, and he threatened to take all of our business, everything but Silas. Claimed he'd wind up being the richest of us all, maybe even get himself a house in town. Matthew got enough of that kind of talk, decided maybe it was time for him and Loreen to be moving out and taking Bo with them, and as much as I didn't like it, I figured it might just be the best idea."

Jesse fumbled around to find a stick at his feet, then used it to stir the coals a bit. Set the smoke free from where it had been trapped under the old copper kettle, 'til it climbed up and made its way into the Duke men's eyes. Jesse rubbed at his, Luke ignored the sting of it.

"Then, suddenly, Jimmy seemed to settle down. Maybe he figured out that if Matthew left, he wouldn't have no one to compete against, no one he had to be faster than. And maybe he just reckoned he's miss Bo's daddy if he left. Them boys was close… except when they wasn't. Whatever it was, Jimmy and Melba, Matthew and Loreen decided to go out one night. Dinner, it was supposed to be, than maybe courting at the lake like when they was kids. I reckoned they was mostly going out there so your daddies could work out what was grating between them. Seemed like a good thing to me."

"They didn't come home," Luke interrupted, because he had it figured out. His father had finally come around from being a jackass and tried to make up with his big brother, but then fate had intervened and—

"That's right, Luke. But that ain't the most important part. It wasn't the truck that made them wreck." Jesse scrubbed at his eyes some more, even though the smoke had subsided. "Oh, it was part of it I suppose. But when they pulled them two cars apart, Sheriff Gorman," right, back then Rosco hadn't been more than a wet-behind-the-ears deputy, "he said they must've been going seventy. I know that don't sound like much to you, Luke, but you have to remember them old cars wasn't made to go more than about fifty. Anything over that and you wasn't driving a car, you was aiming it."

So they were fools, his father and uncle, drag racing in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn't anything he wanted to know, maybe, but it didn't explain why Jesse had his arms folded over that rounded stomach, like maybe he'd swallowed something a man wasn't meant to digest and now it was trying to kick its way back out.

"And he also said that it was your daddy that caused it. Competing right up until the end, maybe letting his temper get the better of him. He was the one that cut Matthew's car off, smashed his tail end right into the front driver's side of Matthew's car 'til it rolled into the ditch. Ruptured his own gas tank, too, so that when he lost control and rolled off right after Bo's daddy, his car exploded. Was a fireball big enough it wound up killing everyone. Then again, Matthew was doomed, probably. Best Sheriff Gorman could figure, he survived the wreck, because his body was found just outside Jimmy's driver's side door. We all, all of us left, reckoned he was trying to get Jimmy out when the car exploded."

If he was a better man, he would put an arm around his Uncle Jesse's shoulders now, comfort away those tears the old man was shedding. Bo would've done it, would've hugged Jesse and promised him everything would be all right. Luke reckoned he was being on his best behavior, just by staying there at all, not storming off for a cleansing run. Maybe to Alabama and back.

"I ain't," he said, and had no idea how many minutes or hours had passed since his uncle finished the story. "Got no plans on letting Bo get killed."

The old man just nodded to that. "I know that, Luke. And you and Bo's got something better than your daddies ever did." And then there was a big old noble sigh. "But moonshining's a dangerous profession, boy. Maybe more dangerous for Dukes than anyone else. The kind of thing that your generation should walk away from. I think you should take the NASCAR offer. It's a fresh start for the Duke family. And like you said, you ain't never argued against the idea that Bo's a better driver than you."

_So walk away from something you might be tempted to compete with Bo over, and go someplace where he can outshine you_. After everything he'd said, those were the only words Jesse left out.

"I'll reread them contracts in the morning," Luke said.

* * *

May 1975

Everything was new and fresh, different shape to the hills, fewer pines and more maples than he was used to seeing, whizzing by the side of the car. Sunshine perfect day. It had started a little rough, with Jesse getting one of them specks in his eye, and Daisy having to take him inside to get it out. The boys wound up standing in the driveway with L.D. saying awkward things about how they hoped he'd look after Daisy and Uncle Jesse. Foolish words, because even if he'd married their cousin just last week, L.D. had no idea what it meant to take care of family. The man hardly knew how to take care of himself. And since they now lived in Sweetwater, it didn't seem likely L.D. and Daisy would be able to watch over Jesse very closely.

Luke had driven the first couple of hours, across the same crests of mountains they'd traveled more on nights than Bo could count. Familiar landmarks like the pass, the hanging rock, and even deer meadow looked different in the light, or maybe just took on a watery quality thanks to the speck in Bo's eyes, must have caught it from Jesse. Good thing Luke was driving; the man wouldn't shed a tear if Bo used a rusty pair of tweezers to yank out each and every hair in his nose.

After awhile he told Luke he wanted to drive. Nothing like being behind the wheel of the General to cheer him up.

Rockingham. A name that promised wild races and fun girls. And a contract in their glove compartment that guaranteed more money per month than the Dukes had earned in the past year. Enough to let Jesse retire, maybe help Daisy out if she needed it. And they could still put some away for their kids, his and Luke's. Shoot, his cousin's kids would probably need college funds, and Bo's would need beer money, but that was fine, that was good. Luke's kids would be a good influence on Bo's, and Bo's kids would teach Luke's how to have fun.

It was a perfect set up, a beautiful day. Only thing wrong with it was the silent sourpuss sitting in the passenger seat.


	6. A Mess to be Cleaned Up

**_Author's note:_** My chapters are long enough; I won't ramble on here. Just -- thanks for sticking with this one, and special thanks to those who leave a review.

* * *

**Chapter Six -- A Mess to be Cleaned Up**

February 1985

Sleep has never much been his friend, especially not when there's work to be done and a mess to be cleaned up. Of course, no one will ever notice what he's doing now, not like Bo's been appreciating how Daisy's fixed up the house. But praise doesn't matter to him, there's brush that needs to be cleared. Dried out scrub is a hazard even here in Georgia where the risk for wildfire isn't as great as it is in the tinderbox Rockies.

A mountain range and a couple of thousand miles he put between himself and Bo, between himself and his past. Reckoned on protecting the whole Duke clan that way, letting Bo and Daisy settle down into safe lives with content little children bouncing on their knees. If distance between himself and Hazzard happened to be a comfort to him at the time, that was only coincidence.

The sun's just threatening to come up and take away the little bit of night chill that's made this task halfway pleasant. Pink glow reveals the deep scratches on his arms that he's not felt until he sees them. Raw and bloody things, and Daisy's going to want to clean them out with moonshine. Maybe he can convince her to save the good stuff for her reception (there's only but a limited supply, now that no one's been cooking in nearly ten years) and let him use soap and water instead. No reason to waste the good time that all of Hazzard could have at the party on a few scrapes that crisscross one man's arms.

"Hey Bo," he calls, acknowledgement that they're sharing the same space again. The man was silent as he could be in his approach, and in truth, Luke didn't hear him. It's more of a warm sensation that he feels, having nothing to do with those orange spikes of light starting to streak across the sky. He doesn't turn, doesn't need to, because he knows what this looks like, could recite it by rote. Same angry cant to Bo's chin, slitted eyes cloaking pain. Red in the face, fists clenched from learning how and why he'd been robbed of his mother's soothing words and his father's protective arms. Nothing's changed since last night, Luke reckons, except that by now Bo's hair will be a disaster from the way he's most likely been flipping from side-to-side in his bed.

"Luke," is the answer, and Bo's itching at his head and yawning. Luke doesn't have to hear the scratch or see the gaping mouth to know what his cousin does when it's this early and the man would rather be sleeping. But he gives in and turns to confirm his suspicions, and confront his cousin. "I was angry," Bo says, then incongruously: "You need help out here?"

His answer is more snort than words. Help doing a pointless, self-assigned task? No, probably not. "You could get me the shears," he suggests, futilely. Bo's not going anywhere and they both know it.

Bo sighs instead. "I was mad, last night, Luke. I didn't mean half them things I said."

It's hard, sometimes, to believe that Jesse's been gone for almost four years now, or that the two of them haven't lived under his roof for close to ten. Because this is just formality, routine as their uncle enforced it. Bo allows as how he might be a little bit sorry and then Luke—

"Bo, I…" has nothing to say. It's one thing to apologize for himself; he's got no idea of how to make amends for someone else. I'm sorry my father killed our parents?

"I was mad at you and at Jesse, too." Well, that's unexpected. Jesse was apparently at home looking after his little nephews when Luke's father decided that _first_ was more important than _family_. "But you know, I've had time to think now. Since you didn't come to bed."

All these years of sleeping in different quadrants of the country, and still Bo manages to act like his neglected wife. _I waited all night for you_. To which, of course, the only answer is _I was out here doing very important work, clearing dead branches from the edge of a farmyard where no one lives_. And no one's going to live here, either; once the wedding's done he and Bo will retreat to their distant corners, and Daisy'll stop by from time to time to make sure the old homestead is standing up.

"There's—Luke." Bo's trying his damnedest to offer forgiveness if only Luke would ask. It's the kind of thing that ought to be done like men, standing and facing each other. Bo's game for it, but there's still those dried out bushes behind Luke, calling to be yanked out by the roots. Luke turns to them.

Bo stoops down next to him, making a show of yanking at a stick or two before looking up at him.

"I didn't have no call to say them things last night, Luke. I was just—I ain't never heard that story before and it made me mad, you knowing it all these years and never telling me."

"Bo—"

"No, wait a minute, Luke. I got more to say." The twigs outsmart Bo, staying rooted down like they are. There's a trick to getting them out, the right angle to pull from with exactly the proper force. Took Luke a fruitless (and somewhat painful, now that he realizes it) hour or so to work it out last night. Bo doesn't bother with that kind of figuring, he just quits trying, sits down and works at catching Luke's eye. If only Luke had one to spare; for now it's going to take both of them to keep an eye on that wily, deceased scrub in front of him. "After awhile, when I settled down, I remembered this thing that Aunt Lavinia told me, back when I was little. It was during one of them trips you went on with Uncle Jesse that I got left behind for. I reckon now that he was taking you up to the still, probably before I was old enough to know what he did at night. Remember, we used to say he was a businessman?"

Luke smiles at the memory of proud little boys announcing that their uncle had his own business. It never occurred to them to ask why he worked nights when other kids' fathers worked during daylight hours, and by the time it did, Jesse started taking them up to the still site, showing them exactly what _the business_ was. It took Bo a long time to get around to wondering; Luke was sworn to secrecy until Bo was old enough to be trusted to keep his mouth closed. "Yeah," is all he says, seems like too little, what with all the images that keep popping into his mind. Jesse in that old, black suit, smelling of sour mash, Lavinia with her hair braided and wrapped around the back of her head, hand holding onto Bo's shoulder to keep him from running out the door after him…

"I must've said something nasty about you. Enough that Aunt Lavinia swatted me." Had to have been really spiteful then, because Bo wasn't anyone Lavinia ever relished punishing.

Sticks and twigs, Luke's got to get them cleared away. Bo can sit there and talk if he wants. There's no reason he needs to help, but Luke's on a mission here.

"Then she sat down in that old chair she used to love, and made me sit in her lap. And she told me about how you was easy to blame for things I wanted but couldn't have. Because you have mountain lion medicine."

"Lavinia, and her animal medicine," Luke agrees, shaking his head. The woman had some interesting ways of looking at the world.

"Yeah, but she was right. She could see things in people and explain them. Like how you was gonna be a leader—"

"—I was the oldest kid, Bo. That's why I was a leader." Because someone had to make decisions and get everyone moving, or they'd all have sat in the same place, doing nothing, day in and day out.

"You was a Sergeant in the Marines—"

"—Field promotion, Bo, because Sergeant Williams got killed."

"Luke! You can argue all day if you want to. It ain't gonna matter none. Lavinia was right, and whether you want to call it mountain lion or stubborn jackass, she had you pegged."

He's running out of brush to clear, just two more little shrubs to go. After that he's probably going to have to find a way to make things right with Bo, to say he's sorry. Somehow.

"And me, too, she was right about how I was blaming you, and how you was easy to hold responsible for things that wasn't your fault."

Stubborn cuss of a last bush, ain't got no plans on coming out, not unless it can rip Luke's hands off in the process. Slipping grip, leaving behind more raw skin than he wants to think about.

"Luke, listen to me."

"I'm listening," and he is, too, he's heard every single damn word and why won't the bush just give in? It's dead, already, why has it got to cling to the ground?

Bo's next to him then, grabbing hold of the base of the shrub, lower than where Luke's hands have slid to. "One, two, three," he calls, then they pull together, keep yanking until the plant gives with a sudden pop, and they're sprawled out on their butts in the dirt. Bo's still got the offending bush in his hands, and the taproot trails into the ground. Probably goes all the way to China.

"Luke, your father, he was probably a mountain lion, too. Easy to blame for things. Jesse blamed him, but that didn't mean he was wrong."

"Bo." But he's too winded to argue, so he just waves his hand through the air, lets it slap down against his knee.

"All I'm saying is, there's more to the story. And ain't no one alive can tell us all of it." Bo uses his dirty hand to mop at his forehead. Hard work, apparently, watching Luke toil. (Or talking to a man that doesn't want to hear what you've got to say.) "Your father, he wasn't a bad guy, Luke. He deserves for you to think that way."

Yeah, Bo would say that, probably means it. Probably needs to believe it, to preserve his faith in the idea that all Dukes are good. Luke knows better, has known better for ten years now, but Bo's new to the idea that there's a black streak running through the Duke line, the streak that ends in Luke.

He puffs out his next breath, then nods, for Bo's sake.

* * *

October 1975

"Watch it, Bo, watch it! He's gonna try to get under you."

"10-4," he answered automatically, forgetting that track protocol didn't include standard CB responses. _At least_, he thought, _it's Luke_. For his first few races they'd assigned him to Charles, a perfectly good crew chief, whose biggest flaw was that he wasn't Luke.

"Bo," Dave had said to him, arm around his shoulder like he was about to reveal a really important, life changing secret. "Charles is experienced at this. He's got more wins under his belt than any of our other crew chiefs. He'll be good for you; he'll teach you the ropes. With Charles, you'll win." Might have been right about then that Bo first realized why Luke looked at their new boss with that narrow-eyed stare.

But Dave owned the car, and if Bo was going to drive it, Charles would be his crew chief. Luke was there, made sure to speak to him every time he pitted, even if it did add a second or two to the gassing process. Charles was all right, but had no instinct, really, for when to coach and when to leave Bo to himself. More than once he just about made Bo steer the car into a wall when his barked out orders had interrupted some serious concentration. Besides, anyone that was strictly Charles, who blanched at being called Chuck or Charlie, wasn't Bo's kind of a man. After that race in Martinsville, Bo had put his foot down. He wanted Luke as his crew chief, or no one at all.

Luke had shaken his head at that, _temper, Bo_ in his eyes. Or maybe it was more about how you didn't threaten your boss with quitting after only your third month. Not when you had a two-year contract and no money if the guy decided to sue you. But it had worked, Dave just sighed and said, "All right, we'll try it out. But if it doesn't work…"

Silly man didn't have a clue.

"He's gonna keep you busy, Bo," Luke said, bringing his focus back. See, like that. Luke knew when to talk and when to keep quiet. At least while Bo was racing.

Off the track, Luke was the strong, silent type. Untouchable, nothing mattered to him. The only exception was the abandon with which he'd celebrate the races Bo made a good showing in. An actual win would find Luke drinking like a moonshiner's son, finding himself a girl, and disappearing for an hour, two if she was pretty. It was about the only glance Bo ever got of his fun-loving cousin, but the fun he was loving had nothing to do with Bo.

"Put the hammer down, Bo! You got this one!" Another win. Yee-haw.

* * *

November 1975

Why the sun had to go picking on him, he'd never know. It wasn't like he ever did anything to provoke it in any way, in fact he spent most of his life in harmony with the sun. Then again, maybe it resented the fact that it had to be responsible for waking up both Duke boys these days. Twice the work had gotten dumped on the sun, but Luke'd grown tired of doing its job for it, anyway.

He would open his eyes, but his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. It was slowing him down tremendously, his inability to complain about his stuck tongue. And first things had to happen first, it was the regimen of his days.

Besides, it didn't much matter how long it took him to stagger out of his bed, he'd still be heading for an empty kitchen. Rockingham or Hazzard, didn't matter. The order of their lives had been preserved through the move, and Bo wouldn't think of waking up until Luke had been banging around the apartment for at least an hour.

While he struggled against the stickiness of sleep trying to pull him back down for another round, he counted days, working it out to be Thursday. Yeah, they had no place to be until lunchtime had come and gone; they always got the morning off after a victory. Which made perfect sense, considering that the duration of the post-race party was in direct proportion to where they'd placed in the race. Parties for winners went on until the bars closed at four. Which meant he'd only been asleep for about four hours, and the sun really could have cut him some slack. (If he'd been in better shape last night, he might have closed his curtains against it. Could be this wasn't entirely the sun's fault.)

Bo's victory, though he'd tried to give Luke equal credit, was a spectacular feat of driving. It was a green track, no traction, and one of Andrew Price's boys was holding up traffic. It wasn't dirt-track, country-boy racing where Bo could get away with bumper tag or even some kind of an aerial maneuver; everything had to be strictly legit. But Bo found his gap and got under the offending driver at the last turn. Wound up bringing Sully with him, a more experienced member of the Silverman team who'd been drafting on Bo. It was a shoot out after that, but in the end, Bo had taken the race. Dave just about messed his white linen pants at their one-two finish.

And the after-party was spent under Bo's arm, getting clung to just about like a teddy bear. "Couldn't have done it without Luke, here," got said over and over until he was pretty sure he was going to have to stuff a napkin down his cousin's throat if he said it one more time. Dave made sure that no one went thirsty, and as Bo loosened up, so did his hold on his oldest cousin. Eventually, Luke was able to find breathing space and a pretty little pit lizard to spend some time with.

Another field promotion, becoming pit crew chief was. A temper tantrum of sorts on Bo's part, and it was just one more time Luke got his stripes without earning them. Which didn't much matter, not in terms of how he performed. The rest of the crew tested him, but after handling Bo Duke all his life, half a dozen men with lousy attitudes, high aspirations and more experience than him were nothing to worry about. He just stood his ground, gave his reasons, and waited for them to see the light. It didn't take long.

Light, so bright, and there was no point in ignoring the sun. It wouldn't go away until it was good and ready, didn't give a damn about what a fool the oldest Duke boy had turned into. Probably wondered why he wasn't out already, hard at work underneath its rays. And on those days when he stood in a hot crew pit, whispering sweet nothings in Bo's ear about exactly how to demolish the competition, he wondered the same thing, how he had come to a point where the freshest smell his nose ever got was a good, strong whiff of burnt rubber, the hardest work was pacing the pits, watching Bo have a hundred near-miss crashes in every race. Back home he'd take those drivers out behind the Boar's Nest and teach them why they shouldn't mess with Bo Duke, but this was one of those times when he had to hold his temper.

_Count ten._ Funny how Jesse's voice in his head came in just as loud and clear as it ever had, even from two states away. _And if that don't work, count another ten. And if that don't work, why, you just come to me and say 'please whip me Uncle Jesse,' because if you don't get control of yourself you're gonna get whipped anyways._

His tongue was free from its dried-saliva bindings by this point, no more excuses for keeping his eyes closed. And once his eyes got opened and tongue loosened, there was no good reason to be flat on his back anymore. Jeans from the foot of his bed (because mornings started that way, yesterday's clothes sufficed until chores got done, even if now chores consisted of making coffee and dusting off the kitchen table) shirt from off the chair, socks out of that little bureau thing by the bed. It was the first time in his life he had his own room, no need to worry about making noise, but still he walked lightly, left the room and closed his door behind him with a feather touch.

Coffee and quiet; it was still weird to spend his mornings in this leisurely way. He'd taken to reading the morning paper, a luxury that life in Hazzard only afforded to Jesse. The old man would filter the most important articles down to his kids, but most times they'd learned everything they really needed to know hanging out in Cooter's garage.

Somewhere in the middle of the obituaries, Bo found his way into the kitchen, still in the sweatpants he'd worn to bed, yawning, scratching at his hair, which was about as tidy as the fluff on a chick. Appearances aside, Bo was in great shape – no wrinkles on his forehead – which meant the sun wasn't as bright for him as it was for Luke, and the anvil wasn't clanging in that blonde head of his.

"Hey, Luke," he greeted, smile brighter than the sun, but not half as painful to look at. "What are we gonna do with our morning off?"

Made him laugh, made him want to tussle Bo's hair (but they were far too old for that). Morning was old news, they were cutting it close to when they had to get to the track already.

"Get dressed," he said. "And we'll get some lunch on the way to work."


	7. Toast Together, Eggs Alone

**_Author's Note:_** _Each time I give a chapter its final proof-read before posting, I am amazed at how dark this story is. Funny, when I was writing it, it didn't seem this gloomy. Thanks for sticking with it, even though it's easily the least fun thing I've ever written. (For what it's worth, what I am working on now is more of an action/adventure kind of a story. Back to my roots.)_

_I don't own any Duke-stuffs, nor make any money for writing Duke-things. _

* * *

**Chapter Seven -- Toast Together, Eggs Alone**

February 1985

"_Now wait just a dang minute." He stopped, had to pause there to get a breath, frustrating how it hemmed and hawed its way past his throat, came into his lungs all wet and heavy and didn't soothe the burning there one bit. _

"_Bo," Luke was saying but it was so far away, outside of this bubble Bo was trapped in. Hot place, seething against the winter wind at his back, heat boiling up in waves between him and Luke. Somewhere along the line this thing had turned around so that now it was Luke with his back against the house, pinned there by the tip of Bo's finger in his rib cage. He jabbed at his cousin once more, maybe because Luke was the only solid thing he could reach._

"_Jesse knew this all our lives," or since it had happened anyway. Luke was a toddler at the time, and Bo an infant, but that was just a technicality. "And you've known it since—when did he tell you, Luke?"_

"_Before we left," came at him from that same distance. Interesting how he could feel Luke's heartbeat and still the man was outside of the rage Bo felt. He was going through hell standing on the porch of his childhood home; Luke ought to be right there, suffering along with him._

"_Ten years," he said, then it was less a bubble that Bo was trapped in, more like a plastic bag, sticking in close to his face, and no more oxygen inside. "_Ten years_, and you never once thought to tell me that it was your father that killed our parents?"_

That, right there, might be the part he regrets most. Confirming what Luke's been thinking ever since Jesse told it to him, that they'd still have parents if Luke's father hadn't been so rash, selfish, competitive.

Sitting on the ground with the blood of a murdered bush on his hands, killed in the name of getting Luke to listen to him, Bo has all kinds of remorse.

"You're a mess," he comments because it is true. Only Luke would be sweating before dawn on a February morning, hair plastered to his skin where it's not frizzed away from his head. Out here in shirt sleeves, and even those are rolled up to reveal raw looking abrasions up and down his arms, and a good sized couple of slices in his palms.

He finds himself wanting to grab hold of Luke's wrists and get a better look at the damage there, but it's not the kind of thing his cousin's about to allow at the moment. He's only got the barest pretense of calm painted across his face right now, and that's solely for the purpose of placating Bo. Ten years of holding onto a bitter secret has taken a toll on his cousin, but the man held it together until he finally retold it last night. As of this morning, Luke is a complete and utter mess.

Bo drops the sacrificial bush out of his own hands, which are a perfectly healthy – if slightly dusty – pink, with no nicks or cuts, primarily because Luke did most of the work. Used to be his cousin's biggest complaint, that he had to do more than his share of chores because Bo was too young or small to properly contribute. Maybe he had a point; looking back it seems like Luke's had to carry the lion's share of any burden. Lavinia would say it was the mountain lion's share.

Luke didn't accompany him to NASCAR, he ran away from home. Away from the county where he had an uncle who'd told him the story of their parents, coloring it in such a way as to ensure that Luke would go. His uncle's intentions were honorable, had to have been. There wasn't a thing Jesse Duke did that was morally ambiguous. Breaking the law was a matter of habit; breaking his word was forbidden. But somewhere in his need to protect his boys from a lifetime of moonshining, Jesse broke Luke's heart, and maybe his spirit. Bo's going to have to try to set that right.

"Come on," he says, finally. "I'll distract Daisy so you can get cleaned up."

Luke nods, might be a substitute for saying thanks. Gets his feet under him in record time, then offers a hand back down to Bo. Maybe it's an automatic gesture, probably is. Bo doesn't care; it's a reason to touch Luke, to make contact. So he grabs on lightly and mostly lifts himself under his own power. No need to go yanking on those raw hands.

Used to be he'd let Luke haul him up, then he'd hook and arm around his cousin's neck. Had a good feel to it; Luke made an excellent leaning post, built solid and standing firm. Now Bo's not sure what to do with that left arm of his, itching like it is to find its natural resting point across Luke's back. It settles for a light hold on Luke's shoulder, just fingers spread across the muscles there, and no weight behind them. His thumb hangs in the sweat at the nape of Luke's neck, but that's all right, he doesn't get shrugged off.

They make it to the porch, the scene of last night's crime, which never amounted to more than a couple of shoves and a few bitter words, before Bo says, "You go get a shower, cuz. Coffee'll be waiting when you get done." Because Luke would tolerate Daisy pouring peroxide straight into open wounds, so long as it meant he could have his morning sludge. And if it were just blood that needed to be cleaned up, Bo would reckon Daisy was the best one for the job. But she'd never do it without asking how it happened and what Luke thought he was doing out there clearing the land without tools or gloves, in the dead of winter and without a coat on. And the answer is too complex for the bride-to-be to handle right now.

Because Daisy's in a whorl about her wedding anyway and won't tolerate someone else's drama to interfere, not when it's this close. She's got a whole formal affair planned, the likes of which she never would have bothered with for L.D. It'll be beautiful, he's sure, once they get past all these last minute details that have his female cousin in a tizzy. Like tonight's rehearsal dinner. He can't swear he understands the necessity of such a thing, but he knows for sure that if him and Luke aren't there and on their best behavior, they'll wind up with frying pan dings in their skulls.

"Bo, I can—"

Yeah, Luke can slay a dragon or brutally murder an unsuspecting bush, left-handed. But this time he's not going to get the chance.

"Just do it, Luke. And after, you go get some shuteye. I'll come get you up in plenty of time for Daisy's daily form of torture."

It's a dangerous game, ordering Luke Duke around like this. Could turn ugly in a heartbeat, but Luke's too tired to fight. "Thanks, cousin," is all he says.

* * *

January 1976

It was betrayal, was what it was. It was something to get stuffed in the back of his sock drawer. And then it turned into a loud-voiced bastard, calling to him as he went about his daily routine. _I'm right here, Luke. Come and look at me, do some serious thinking about what you can get out of me._

A future of his own, mostly. A position he'd earn on the merits of his skills, not his blood (or someone else's). A way out of a life that had grown as boring as hell.

Or maybe that wasn't fair, could be it had just gotten to be routine. Same strategy every time, at least as far as his job went. Keep an eye on Bo, then tell him things he could figure out on his own, if he tried. In fact, if Luke wasn't there, Bo would probably improve as a driver from the simple necessity of looking after himself.

That last part could well have been that thing in the back of his drawer talking, justifying itself. All the same, it seemed like maybe the thing had itself a point.

After about two days of being harassed by a stupid piece of mail – an opportunity he only thought of because back on one sweaty jungle day, PFC Peters had mentioned how he'd been drafted out of one service and into another – Luke went and dug it out of his bureau. Ignoring it was an impossibility.

For all that it had commanded his thoughts for forty-eight hours, it was an unimpressive two-page application. Name, address, have you ever been convicted of any crime? (Convicted no. Committed, well that was up to interpretation, wasn't it?) Height, weight, last year of school completed; the same kind of thing he'd had to reveal to the government when he'd reported for that physical exam in October of 1971. Nothing that was any sort of a secret, nothing that would hurt anyone if he told.

All he really needed was a pen.

Bo was a pimply wreck with big feet and bad posture back when Luke got drafted. He'd played at being brave for the interim between Luke's physical exam and his induction, but in the end he'd cried and clung and made Luke loathe to leave him. Jesse'd had a hand in raising the kid, mostly a firm one. Daisy made for a fine friend to his kid cousin. But neither of them knew him like Luke did, or had the slightest clue when it came to dealing with Bo on a day to day basis. Somehow he didn't reckon the Marine Corps would give him a deferral to raise his baby cousin, not when his uncle was legally the boy's guardian, so he'd had to go. Seemed like as disastrous idea.

What he came back to was a six-foot-plus young man, handsome and confident. At least that described the exterior package; underneath it all, Bo was still Bo. All the same, he'd managed without Luke. Maybe he was better for that bravado he'd developed in those years, veneer though it was.

And then there was the fact that Luke was restless and itchy and… He'd tried to remind himself that he didn't have the luxury of ambition. He stayed out of race cars and mostly left Bo to the girls. If his cousin wanted something, Luke did his best to convince himself that Bo should have it and Luke didn't need anything close to it. He didn't compete over anything, avoided stepping on anyone's toes. And, yeah, he was about to have to go and tempt the local law into a pointless chase, just for something to do, because subverting his own aspirations for the sake of Bo was about to bore him out of his mind.

_Dukes don't fight Dukes_, Jesse always said, and now that he knew what was there for the reading in between those lines, Luke finally got it. When Dukes fought Dukes, Dukes wound up dead. Bo was safer on the track, even locked in a duel with a dirty driver, than he was with Luke – unless any competition between them could be squashed.

The forestry service wasn't anything Bo would want to follow him into. The land around him was nothing more than scenery in that blonde head. It was appreciated in the same way Bo appreciated lunch: it should be there when desired, have a pleasant aroma, be plentiful and convenient, and never make him work too hard at getting it. Luke understood that approach, really. He'd had it too, had figured the world was a never-ending stretch of oaks and maples interrupted by evergreens. Mountains were like the little freckles on his arms: plenty of them there, unremarkable and not going anywhere anytime soon. Cold air in winter, warm in summer, all of these things Luke took for granted until he lost them. Or misplaced them, really. Got sent over to a country that was flat (oh, it had mountains, apparently, just not in the part where Luke wound up), where a man was lucky to find the scant shade of a palm tree when the heat was unrelenting. It was right about then that Luke started loving Appalachia for real.

Bo would never love the Southeastern United States the way Luke did, because he'd never leave it, not for more than the week here and there that the team traveled to the Midwest. Luke could join the forestry service and protect the land he'd learned to appreciate without ever having to worry about becoming competitive with Bo over it.

He was still sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the application, when Bo stumbled his half-dressed, gaping-mouthed self into the kitchen in search of breakfast.

* * *

January 1976

Luke was reading again, and Bo reckoned that soon enough he'd go gray and need glasses, just like their uncle did. Then that pot belly would set in, and that would be a tragedy. Used to be Luke hardly sat still, and now Bo even found him reclined from time to time, book or newspaper just about perched on his nose.

"We need a cow," Bo decided. "So you got something to do with your mornings besides reading. And so's I can have some fresh milk for my breakfast."

"Fine idea," Luke agreed, "I'll milk it, you clean up after it." Funny guy.

"What's for breakfast?" he yawned. Luke gave him that flat-lipped look that might have been a suggestion that he cover his mouth. Interesting development, now that they weren't living under the same roof as Daisy, that it was Luke who'd turned into the woman of the house.

"Whatever you want," Luke answered, shaking his head. "I already ate."

And that was another thing Bo wasn't real happy about. Used to be the two of them shared all of their meals. When it came to breakfast, Luke got him up. On purpose or by mistake, it didn't matter. Nothing got eaten until they were both at the table. But with them in separate bedrooms, it got too easy for him to lose track of his cousin.

"You say grace?" was just a jibe, a reminder that they were raised better than that. Meals only got eaten after important things got done. The chores. Waking up the rest of the family. Thanking the Lord.

"Bo," might have been the start of an argument, once upon a time. Today it's just a sigh. "I had toast. I would have made you some, but I didn't expect it would be any good cold. Besides, there was only two eggs left and I figured you'd want those." Luke's eyebrows scrunched down and he looked off to the furthest corner of the room, like his patience had been tried to its limits and those numbers he counted to were printed on the wallpaper there.

"Well what if I don't want eggs?" Because maybe toast with his cousin would have tasted better and been more satisfying than eggs by himself, but of course Luke hadn't thought about that. He was too busy trying to turn into their uncle and female cousin, all rolled into one boring little ball. Maybe he missed the rest of their family, and maybe he reckoned Bo did. And maybe he was even right about that, but that didn't mean he wanted Luke to become them. Shoot, could be it was Luke that he missed most of all, even living right here under the same roof.

"Bo," and there was that exhausted headshake, like talking to Bo required more effort than Luke wanted to put in. "I ain't gonna argue with you. There's eggs if you want them or toast if you don't. Anything else we're gonna have to go out and get, which means you gotta be dressed." Luke thought he knew everything, but he didn't understand the simplest of courtesies.

"What you been reading there that was more important than waking me up?" A man just ought to remember he had family, was all. "Or waiting on me for breakfast?"

Another sigh on top of two headshakes, and clearly Luke was suffering from miseries that no mortal man could understand. "It ain't more important and I ain't reading it. There's coffee on the stove if you want some."

Coffee, which Bo only drank when he'd been playing too hard the night before to handle the day in front of him without some liquid energy. It was Saturday, he didn't need that bitter sludge. So he went to the refrigerator instead, started getting out the ingredients for a decent breakfast, and only just barely stopped himself from slamming the eggs down on the counter. In their stupid cardboard cartons, the likes of which Dukes never had in their fridge, and who knew whether they might have survived his anger. "What ain't you reading then, that's got you so fascinated?" Stupid shiny, new refrigerator, annoying hard plastic counters that Luke complained would get scratched up if he didn't use a damned cutting board.

"It's an application," Luke answered.

An application, they didn't have to fill those out anymore. Dirt track races at home, those a driver had to apply to enter. Here on the circuit, if there was any paperwork, it got filed by Dave's office.

"For the Forestry Service," was the clarification from over there at the table. Not that it helped. Even if Luke was thinking of racing the General in some local derby, it wasn't very likely that the Forestry Service cared. Not that Bo knew for sure; maybe in North Carolina the Forestry Service was the rough equivalent to Boss Hogg, running everything worth doing in exchange for a cut of the take. "For a job with the Forestry Service."

Bo laughed. "What, Johnson's trying to convince you to leave again?" Because Johnson became the gasser when Luke got moved up to pit crew chief, and he'd been on something of a crusade to annoy both Dukes ever since. Bo reckoned it was lucky for him that he wasn't a Hazzard boy messing with Luke at the Boar's Nest, or he might find himself minus a few teeth. Funny how his cousin didn't seem like the fighting kind these days.

"No," Luke answered, and Bo didn't like how hollow it sounded. Like his cousin had absented himself from this whole conversation because just maybe… was Luke _nervous?_

"You ain't applying, are you?" Almost made him laugh again. A Duke boy applying for a job. All of Hazzard would be in stitches over that notion.

"Thinking about it." And the way Luke was looking up at him, those blue eyes fixed steady like they had always been at those times when he had to cop to unpleasant things with Jesse, there was no doubt. _Thinking _was the wrong word for what Luke was doing, it was more like _confessing_.

Eggs didn't matter and breakfast wasn't the only thing Luke was leaving him alone to get for himself.

"You got a job, Luke," he advanced on his ungrateful cousin to remind him. "After I worked so hard to get you promoted to pit crew chief—"

"Bo." It was calm, so reasonable. Like Luke was already gone and the actual leaving was just a formality. "Being your pit crew chief is—"

"What Luke, it's what? Not good enough? You got to drive against me, you think you're better than me? Fine. We ask Dave, I'm sure we can get you into Sully's car. Then we'll find out whether you're man enough—"

"Bo!" It might have been progress; Luke's voice was raised at least, in some acknowledgement that what they were talking about here was more than toast, coffee and eggs. He even stood up, trying to see eye to eye, but he couldn't – not when Bo got right up into his face. "The last thing I want to do is race against you. I'm just done with racing all together, maybe." What? That wasn't possible. Before they could drive, the only thing they could talk about was getting behind the wheel. Which they did, long before they were technically of legal age, and that didn't satiate them. From there it was all about racing, with 'shine running as a training ground. So far as Bo knew, Luke had never wanted to do anything else.

The application just sat there on the table, silently menacing everything they'd ever wanted, and Bo had a pretty good feeling it hadn't walked into the house all on its own. "So you just today decided to apply to the Forestry Service? When was you planning to tell me, Luke? 'Hey Bo, Charles is gonna be your chief again starting today.' Is that how you figured to do it, Luke?"

Clenched teeth, Luke's controlled façade was finally cracking. "I figured to tell you now, Bo. I only been thinking about it for a few days." Luke shook his head at that, reset his brain and maybe finally got honest. "Or maybe I been thinking about it for years. One of my friends over in Vietnam—"

He shoved Luke, couldn't help it. Heard the chair clatter to the floor behind his cousin's stumbling feet, but of course Luke didn't go down. Reflexes of a cat, gained from experience riding on the roof of a car while Bo drove. "Some guy you knew for – what, two years at most – is more important than me? Is that what you're saying, Luke?"

"No! I ain't saying nothing like that." Temper, temper, and Bo expected Luke to lose his any second now. Braced himself for the punch that was bound to hurt like hell. "Bo, would you shut up and listen to me? I ain't talked to Peters in years. I don't know whether he went back to it or not. I guess I just got the idea from remembering him talk about it, is all."

"You ain't applying, Luke, you ain't!" Oops. It wasn't Luke's control that cracked first, it was Bo's. His control and his voice went at the same time. He wasn't crying, he was just – anger did this to him, was all.

"Bo." When Luke's hands finally came, they didn't hit, more like squeezed. His shoulders and upper arms, and that wasn't fair. Because what hadn't been tears seconds ago was about to become them right now. "I ain't leaving you. There's placements available as close as Uwharrie." Wherever that was. A state park and not all that far, he didn't think. Seemed like Luke had mentioned going there some weekend when they weren't traveling, but it had never happened.

Those hands were moving on his shoulders again, encouraging him closer until Luke had him in his arms. "I ain't leaving you, Bo. I'm just leaving NASCAR."

Like it wasn't the same damned thing.


	8. You Could Help

_**Author's note:** Almost there. I know this one has been a bit painful. Thanks for hanging in there._

* * *

**Chapter Eight -- You Could Help**

February 1985

"When did you stop trusting yourself, Luke?" Cheating, Bo's cheating by asking him that kind of thing in the groggy hours of the night. He's out of practice for having a roommate, especially not the kind that talks. His cabin had mice last year, but they mostly kept whatever conversation they engaged in quiet and to themselves.

It's not a question that even makes sense, much less has an answer. So he yawns at it. "How come you never settled down?" is how he changes the subject.

There's a rustle; Bo's over there in bed, flat on his back. Must've shrugged. "Never found the right girl I guess." More rusting, Bo's turning to face him now; the same drooling grin he used to sport at nineteen glows through the moonlit room now. "Oh, believe me, I've looked plenty." Luke marks time between that sentence and the next, knows it's coming and exactly how it's going to sound before it even gets here. "What about you?"

"Guess I ain't looked for the right girl," Luke answers, feeling his own lips pull up at the one corner, remembers this echoing smile from all those night he and Bo spent in this room talking about moonshine, cars and girls (not necessarily in that order). "Oh, believe me, I've found plenty." Laughter, naughty little boy giggles, and they're not all coming from his cousin, either. "Go to sleep, Bo." They've got a long day tomorrow, starting at the church and ending at the Boar's Nest, and in between they'll have to be social with the entirety of Hazzard. Bo needs his beauty sleep.

They're up before the sun, just like the farm boys they used to be all those years ago, but it's not instinct that's responsible. It's Daisy on a rampage, sending them off to the Boar's Nest with bags of things Luke has no idea what to even call, much less properly handle.

"Balloons," their whirling dervish of a cousin clarifies. "Streamers, centerpieces, candles, favors." And then there's the command: "Decorate!"

"I thought Bertha Jo was doing this for you," Bo is fool enough to ask her, his voice sounding like Junior High all over again, while he tugs at the drawstring to the sweats he's been sleeping in since they've been home. "Isn't… shouldn't…"

"She's got the flu." Fine timing that, Daisy's bridesmaid and general lackey getting sick today of all days. "She'll be at the wedding, but she ain't fit to set up the reception. Just go!" is Daisy's final word on the matter.

Or should be. Maybe he wants to watch his female cousin jump the tracks at full speed. Maybe he misses the sweet sound of a frying pan whizzing through the air just before it makes painful contact with his head. Maybe he's just hoping to beat Bo to the punch, and save his cousin's neck one last time.

"Can we get dressed first?" Luke asks.

"I don't care what you do," and he's pushed her too far, things are about to get real dangerous, so he picks up the bags and shuffles Bo back towards their bedroom right quick. "So long as that Boar's Nest is sparkling clean and perfectly decorated by nine AM. Nine AM, Luke!" The rest comes through the door that he closes between her and the boys. He puts down the bags and gestures for Bo to make haste with the getting dressed. "And then I want you back here and in your tuxes by nine-thirty!" It's mercifully quiet as Luke grabs a pair of jeans – his or Bo's, he won't be sure until he gets them on – off their floor. Bo's still as much a slob as ever (and Luke's not used to dealing with more than his own jeans lying around in random places). "Did you hear me, Luke Duke?"

"Yes, Ma'am," he answers, then cringes. No telling how his cousin will take that _ma'am_ part.

"You really did it this time," Bo mutters at him as Daisy's stomping feet echo – thankfully – away from their door.

"You just best be in your best driving form, is all I got to say," Luke answers. "Because if we ain't at the Boar's Nest in record time, I think she's gonna string us up by our own neckties this afternoon." And that's provided they live that long.

Luke catches Bo looking longingly at the window to their bedroom, and is sympathetic to that thought; used to be that was the best way to get out of the house undetected. It's tempting but: "Not with all this stuff she wants us to carry," he answers the unasked question. "Come on, she ain't going to do no worse than yelling at us to hurry now. We got a few hours yet before she really plans to hurt us."

In fact, they're lucky enough to miss Daisy altogether as they slink out the door. Likely she's laid on her bedroom floor doing some last minute sit ups. There was something she said about the cut of the dress and the shape of her belly – which is as perfectly flat as it's ever been and he'll never understand the way her mind works, no matter how long he lives. They slide real easy into the loaner car he got from Cooter after he arrived in Hazzard; a sexy little Mustang it is, about ten years old, but in Cooter's hands it's been honed to a fine piece of machinery. Loud though, and he considers pushing it out of the driveway without starting it, but Daisy's not a revenuer or lawman, and in those heels she's got a habit of wearing, it's not likely she could catch them even if she was to take out after them.

"Hit it," he tells Bo, and it even if it's daylight and their cargo is strictly legal, it feels like old times. A few stomach churning turns and they're skimming down Old Mill Road like they used to in—

"Bo," he says, steeling himself for things he might not want to know. "What happened to the General?"

"What do you mean what happened to him? Nothing happened to him." And that there is Bo's affronted voice. "He's in storage. I ain't had no reason to drive him." His cousin sighs and shakes his head. "Did you think I got rid of him or something?"

"I thought you might've," he says. "You was—"

"He's family, Luke. I took care of him." And that settles that. Sort of. It's too small in the car now, not enough air to breathe and talk both. (_When did you stop trusting yourself, Luke?_) He'd open a window, but Bo's been complaining about the chilly February winds for the whole week.

They get all the way to the Boar's Nest before they realize that Bertha Jo's got the keys. Daisy's probably got a set, too, but they're back at the house and there's nothing that's gonna make them go back there unless or until there are streamers and balloons covering the inside of this joint.

Luke picks the lock with his knife, rusty old fingers, and Bo snickering at his back. "Daisy's gonna kill you," is his idea of encouragement. Would go easier of his hands weren't so dinged up from yesterday's battle with the scrub. Still, the farmyard looks better – lived in and loved, maybe – than it did before.

"You could help," is Luke's suggestion, but right about the time the last word gets out of his mouth, the third tumbler catches, and the door swings inward. "Thanks," he mutters. "Couldn't have done it without you."

"You're welcome," Bo chirps in his ear. Luke bumps an elbow into his chest to steer him back in the general direction of the car.

"Get them decorations, Bo."

Inside, they discover their old stomping grounds have changed quite a bit under the ownership of Mrs. Lulu Hogg. What Boss had walled off and turned into an office is now open, about doubling the size of the place.

"Damn," he mumbles. Even the Boar's Nest is thwarting the Duke boys today, presenting twice the space to get turned into a paradise fit for a princess. "Best start decorating, Bo."

"Me?" comes the same whining complaint he's heard for most of his life. "Why do I got to do it?"

It's quite simple, actually. "Because I ain't got no idea how to make this place look good," Luke explains. "You got more… you're awfully good at making yourself pretty. I figure you know how to do this kind of a thing better than I do." And really, it could be a worse task. The room's already got kind of a girly look to it, what with that cheerful, flowered wallpaper up over the booths. Boss would have blown a gasket at the thought, mainly because it must have actually cost something to cover over the bare and splintered wood that used to be there.

Bo drops the overstuffed paper bags of girl's junk on the nearest table and assumes the pose of a vengeful rooster. Chest forward, chin up and, "I ain't," he says in his most masculine voice, too bad it cracks on him like that, "no girl, Luke. I ain't got no more practice with these kinds of things than you do."

"No wonder you ain't married," Luke answers, letting Bo interpret that any way his cheerful blonde brain would like. He reckons that the two of them getting back home late, with fat lips and bruised jaws, might just get them out of the ceremony. Where he's supposed to give away the bride. Bo might echo the sentiment, stuck being Enos' best man like he is.

"Gentlemens," comes from the front door that Bo never saw fit to close. "I see you ain't started yet. Daisy figured you boys couldn't be trusted to do this right." Cooter's awfully amused with himself.

"So she sent you?" is Bo's incredulous reaction. It's based in 1974 or thereabouts, when Cooter's biggest responsibility was to keep the town amused with his fool's antics. Now he's a hotshot mechanic with his own garage, and clearly it's gone to his head. And Daisy's.

"If only to keep you boys from killing each other," Cooter responds with that same gap-toothed grin he's kept since childhood. (_When did you stop trusting yourself?_) "She said," and there just happens to be some gray in that hair, so hard to believe their friend has grown up enough to have collected any snow on the mountaintop "the helium tank is behind the bar."

This might just be the thing he's missed most about Hazzard: friends and neighbors butting right in. And miraculously, Cooter has something of a clue about what to do with crepe paper. The extent of his and Bo's decorating skills come from high school adventures with toilet paper.

* * *

February 1976

Everything was muted. Too damned quiet. Their apartment, it was downright silent most of the time. Time in the General was hushed, and during races his headset didn't buzz with half the chatter it used to.

But Luke stayed with him – or stayed with NASCAR, since his cousin saw fit to draw the distinction. Made sure they both got to work on time, even if Dave wasn't a stickler with his top drivers (or their pit crew chiefs, and Bo couldn't understand what Luke's problem was, really – if he was bored with the pit surely he could get a car, and if he wouldn't be the best he'd still be plenty good), made sure everyone worked like a well oiled machine. Bo reckoned maybe he'd thrown away that Forestry Service application after all; didn't ask because he didn't want to learn differently, and didn't want to put that bug back in Luke's brain if by chance it had fallen out.

Mobile was a lousy trip right from the first mile. They didn't make it out of North Carolina before the General started throwing oil. Made them stop before reaching Columbia, then twice more en route to Augusta, and each time Luke swore he'd gotten it fixed. Eventually his cousin told the caravan to go on without them and that they'd be along. Might have been to keep from inconveniencing all of their colleagues, but Bo reckoned it also had a little something to do with pride. And Luke's refusal to let any of the pit mechanics touch the General.

Luke drove them through Atlanta without stopping or even getting off the interstate. If Bo might have wanted to see some of their old stomping grounds, he kept it to himself. They were already well behind the pack and Luke wasn't interested in diversion or conversation anyway.

In fact, aside from a few well-placed curse words, the next time Luke spoke to him came on the gravel shoulder of a frontage road off of Interstate 85, most of the way to Montgomery.

"You could help me here," got growled at him. It was an interesting notion, actually. Up until that moment there was no indication that Luke wanted him anywhere near. And it turned out that _help_ was a fancy word for _stand-there-and-hold-this-and-whatever-you-do-don't-talk-to-me_.

Maybe the General had a point with his fits of colic, about how Mobile wasn't going to be good for them. The hotel room had thin walls and a dripping sink, leaving silent Duke boys to hear the fun going on next door well into the evening, then the splashing of water all night. On test runs Bo couldn't find the track's groove, despite Luke's useless suggestions. Only time the man talked and it was just to give Bo bad advice. By the end of the week, Bo had qualified, provisionally. Wound up starting at the back of the pack and bouncing through turbulence for the entirety of the race. By the time it was over and he hadn't even placed, it just felt like fate. Doom and gloom in the form of a cousin, maybe, had its own hand in there. Luke hardly bothered with the after-party (which was in Sully's honor anyway, because at least he'd been in the running) and by the time Bo dropped off pretty little Angie (or maybe her name was Sandy) at her door and got back to his own hotel room, the lights were out.

"We're stopping by Hazzard tomorrow," the street-lamp lit lump in Luke's bed informed him. "We'll stay overnight there and let Cooter get a good look at the General."

Sounded fine to him. He didn't know why it was getting announced with about as much enthusiasm as a trip to the dentist.

Bo drove them off the interstate and up old familiar roads while Luke kept to his own corner, slouched back and apparently just listening to each drop of oil hit the ground beneath them. His frown got deeper with each and every splatter, which of course only he could hear.

"Luke?" It was taking his life into his hands, but he had to know which way to steer the car. It seemed like they'd never been this close to home without Luke telling him exactly which route to take. "You want to go to town first, or the farm?"

About the only way he knew he'd been heard was a slight shift in Luke's slump, then blue eyes rolling to meet his. They looked… not as annoyed as Bo might have anticipated. They were tired, maybe. Reminiscent of something familiar, he'd seen that look before. Finally, Luke's tongue interrupted Bo's study of his eyes.

"Jesse'd whip our tails if'n we didn't go see him first thing." And that there was the undying truth.

So Luke listened to oil leaking all the way up Old Mill Road, while Bo drove through the striped shadows of trees, painted across the road by the angular winter sun. As dead and dry as everything was at this time of year, Hazzard was just a beautiful as it had ever been. And the face of the old man who waddled out onto the chill of his own rickety front porch, red and wrinkled as it was, held its own beauty, especially when a toothy grin broke out across it.

"My boys, my boys," he sang out as he approached with both arms wide. Funny how it seemed to take forever for Bo to wiggle out of his window and bound to where his uncle stood – and somehow it took Luke even longer. Must've paused in his progress to hear tiny oil droplets seeping into the dirt of the driveway. But eventually the hug evened out like it always did, Jesse pulling each of his boys close enough that they hugged each other almost by default.

Jesse wondered aloud to what he owed the honor of their presence, then dismissed the answer as insignificant. Dinner – a feast – was more important. Cooter was called to report to the Duke farm with whatever tools he could gather from his father's shop, because there was no way Jesse's boys were leaving the premises until they absolutely had to.

Bo couldn't tell whether it exactly coincided with the last drops of oil to land on the ground or not, but Luke stopped being silent enough to hear such things somewhere around the time afternoon wore into darkness. There were no crawdads at this time of year for Jesse to make bisque with, so they had to settle for roast pork and the company of family and friends, who trickled in just about the time things started smelling really good. Daisy and L.D. brought apple pie (_if you want gooseberry_, Daisy had chastised with a smile and a swat to the top of his head – that girl knew how to hit – _you'd better show up again in summer_), Dobro and Cooter brought their appetites. By full on dark, Brody was there with his banjo, which meant Bo and Luke had to bring out their guitars. Amazing, it was, to hear Luke sing again. Hadn't crossed his mind until just now that Luke had stopped singing when they quit working the fields.

Somewhere in the middle of all the ruckus, Jesse asked if his boys could stay an extra day. It was no real surprise when everyone looked to Luke for the answer.

"I reckon I can convince Dave to cut us some slack," he agreed. And it was done.

For two days, he and Luke wandered over old stomping grounds, sometimes after cramming Jesse through one of the General's windows.

"Does a body good," their uncle informed them, "to get some fresh air now and again." Which of course they'd – all three of them – not seen as much of since the boys left Hazzard. Jesse was fully retired from the moonshine business now, sustaining the mortgage on the boys' income. Retirement was another thing that Jesse declared did a body good. He might have been a bit less than convincing about that part, but Bo wasn't about to argue with him.

Out of respect for the past, maybe, they stayed off old moonshine-running trails, kept to places where they could entice Rosco out of hiding for a hearty chase. Jumped a creek or two just to hear Jesse complain about fool boys, and share a knowing smile with Luke. He knew he'd missed his cousin; exactly how much hadn't become clear until they spent a couple of days in Hazzard.

And Luke stayed with him, making snide observations about other drivers and cops napping in their cruisers amongst the trees lining the interstate, all the way back to Rockingham. Gave Bo grief about how he wasn't carrying his share of the luggage, when it was Luke who'd fished more than half out of the trunk for himself. Piled his own suitcases on top of Bo's in his arms so he could dig out his keys and open the door to their apartment. In other words, relatively normal Luke behavior.

Lasted right up until they started sorting through a week's worth of mail, and Bo found an envelope from the United States Forestry Service.

"You didn't apply," he asked or stated, or maybe just begged Luke to confirm for him.

"I did," Luke answered. "I told you I was going to."

"You didn't," but he had, that night when they'd first argued over it. Close to a month ago, and Bo had every reason to hope Luke had changed his mind since then or that the idea had gone away. "Don't open it," he said. It wasn't a command, he didn't yell or scream, and if his voice rose a notch it was only so Luke could hear him better. "Don't," had to swallow first. "Don't go."

Luke took a deep breath, and wiggled his finger into the flap. "If they offer me a position I'm gonna take it, Bo."

"Don't," and a less mature man would have snatched the letter away from Luke, but Bo kept his hands to himself. "Luke."

"We already talked about this." Of course he was reasonable, so damned calm. "I can work right up the road," if you could call forty miles away _right up the road_. "I ain't gonna leave you, cousin, but if this is an offer, I'm leaving NASCAR." So logical. So—cold.

It was like falling down a well, maybe. Everything was far away and picked up an echo from somewhere between Luke's mouth and Bo's ears. It wasn't him that puffed out his chest or jutted his chin, wasn't him that started to yell. It was someone else, closer to Luke than he was, borrowing Bo's voice to holler: "Damn it, Lukas! It ain't—if you're going to go, just go. I don't want you staying here if you're leaving NASCAR." It might have been a bluff, Bo had no idea. Since it wasn't really him talking and he wasn't actually here (even if he could feel his own face flushing, his finger jabbing in Luke's direction until fingernail met breastbone). "I don't need your damned pity!"

"It ain't pity, Bo, it's—"

"Just get the hell out!" he screamed. Things moved fast after that.

* * *

February 1976

He didn't hit Bo back. It wasn't easy, there was taunting in there somewhere, reminders about how Luke was just jealous of Bo's driving skill, suggestions that he was afraid to face him on the track. Most of it didn't make sense, but Bo's rage did. There'd been enough of a gap between the application and the letter inviting him for a physical exam that they'd both had time to assume Luke would get rejected or maybe just plain old ignored.

He didn't hit Bo back, but after taking a couple jaw-rattlers, he had to put a stop to it. Pinned his cousin against the wall until the struggling stopped and his breathing hitched. Luke tried to put his arms around him then, same as he'd done all his life, but Bo shoved him off.

"Leave me alone," got growled at him, then Bo slammed off into his own bedroom. Refused to come out for anything like dinner, but Luke heard him shuffling around the kitchen after midnight, long after he'd gone to bed. No sleep for either Duke boy, seemed like.

Morning, he expected, would bring rationality – but it didn't. Nor did the following morning. Bo never wavered, not once during the week before Luke went off to the Blue Ridge office of the Forestry Service in Asheville for a physical exam and interview. He held firm through the week that Luke waited for the phone call back. And when the offer came, Bo made clear his position.

"If you give Dave your notice, you best give me notice too, so's I can figure out how I'm going to pay the rent by myself," got spat at him, a precious gift of guilt.

"Bo," he'd tried, but—

"Make up your mind, Luke."

It should have been an empty threat, but it had lasted too long for that. Bo meant it.

Which was how Luke came to be driving across flat wasteland in a rented car. Nothing but threshed fields for mile after mile. He'd be falling asleep out of boredom if he didn't still have Bo's voice screaming at the back of his brain, about how Dukes were supposed to stick together, and what he was doing went against everything Jesse taught them.

At least, he reckoned, if he was on the other side of the country, fighting fires in the Rockies instead of the Smokies, he wouldn't have to worry about ever getting drawn into a competition with Bo. He couldn't hurt him from a thousand miles away.


	9. Coda: What I Keep You Around For

_**Author's Note:** So here's where it ends. And maybe I never realized how dark the story was becuase I always knew it would get here in the end. _

_Thanks to everyone who stuck it out. I hope that, like me, you will find that the last chapter makes it worth while. _

_As always, I don't own or earn a single thing. But -- even if it might be hard to tell sometimes -- I do love these boys._

_(It was a waltz; it gets a coda.)_

* * *

**Coda -- That's What I Keep You Around For**

February 1985

It's been a heckuva long day, starting from the moment Daisy none-too-gently brought them to consciousness. Bo doesn't remember waking up exactly, more like suddenly being in the kitchen, getting instructions at high volume. Would have made him angry except for the how the pitch wavered, and exactly how upset Daisy was. That and Luke standing next to him; seems like all the worst events in life have always been made better by the presence of his oldest cousin.

Who has gone missing in the few minutes Bo spent in the bathroom getting out of his monkey suit and grabbing a quick shower. Now he's back in the kitchen, wet headed and comfortably dressed, and all that's left of Luke is his tailcoat neatly folded and laid out on the back of a kitchen chair. He's outside, got to be; the old farmhouse would creak with his presence it he were in here. Besides, seems like Luke's only spent time indoors to sleep or when confined here by Daisy, but she's gone now. Off to her honeymoon at Lake Chickamahoney, and only a true Hazzardite would consider that a reasonable honeymoon spot. It's just water surrounded by trees, same as the Hazzard Pond, except over the years since they were all skinned-kneed kids fishing with poles made out of forsythia branches and twine, it's gotten a name for being romantic.

So Luke's flown the coop again, and Bo can only hope he's not out there pulling trees up by their roots or rebuilding the remains of the barn. The only remnant of the man is that tailcoat, which means that Luke's still mostly dressed in fine clothes. Not only fine, but rented, and on Bo's credit card, too. There's another thing Jesse would be amazed at: Dukes making purchases with credit.

_Jesse._

Bo makes his way out into the chilling air. A couple of hours back, when his shadow was shorter and there were fewer clouds blocking the sun, the temperature actually got pleasant enough that the bridesmaids didn't shiver in their sleeveless dresses when they stood on the steps to the church. Luke was probably dripping with sweat, but the girls –their shiny hair pulled up to show the smooth curves of their milky-white necks – they'd looked comfortable. And Daisy had been ravishing.

Bo spares a futile wish that Luke changed out of his perfectly shined shoes before he came out here, but odds are against it. The red clay, just under the brambles that cover what were once cornfields, thawed out its solid iciness in the warm afternoon; it's clinging to his boots and even the cuffs of his jeans. He might as well face it now, he's going to have to buy Luke's tux. Maybe, someday, the man will get married in it himself.

And there's his erstwhile cousin now, right about where Bo figured he'd be. What he's done shows a side to Luke that no one's seen since probably before the war. Daisy's wedding flowers are everywhere here, mostly blanketing her parents' graves, but there are plenty to go around, coloring the resting places of all their ancestors.

"You telling them about the wedding?" he asks by way of letting Luke know he's here.

That cocked eyebrow he gets for an answer mocks the very notion that Luke would talk to dead people. "I reckoned you could do that," Luke answers over his shoulder at him, lopsided smirk making his opinion clear. "Tell them about the taffeta," and that right there is no fair. Neither him nor Luke has the slightest idea what that word means, only that Daisy used it a lot in reference the bridesmaid's dresses. "And the crinoline. And whatever that was called, what Daisy did to her hair." It was a French twist, but Bo only knows that because the girl said it about a hundred times. Luke's got to know it every bit as well as he does.

"You could tell them how nervous you was about walking down the aisle with Daisy," Bo reminds him. "I thought you was gonna be sick."

Luke's chin dips enough that he's looking through his upper eyelashes at Bo, then he shakes his head. "I'd tell them that, but if'n I did, I'd have to get around to the part where you did your best man toast. You was so busy flirting with Donna Jo, you almost forgot Daisy's name."

"Got a date with her for tomorrow night, though," he agrees, grinning at the thought. It's been awhile since he's had the pleasure of a Hazzard girl. They're different from the standard fair, a little rougher around the edges maybe, yet softer in their curves. A breed all their own. Luke just shakes his head and stares off at nothing in particular. "I didn't know you'd brought the flowers back, cuz."

He gets a shrug for that. "I asked Daisy if she had any plans for them, and she said no. So I put them in the trunk while you was busy making plans with Donna Jo. And maybe some other plans with Lisa Kate?" But the moment of humor has passed.

"Looks real nice," he says. "Luke, he'd be proud of all of us." Because it seems like that's really what this is all about. "He'd be glad it was you that gave Daisy away."

"I suppose," Luke answers. It's not agreement, exactly, but then Luke's not known for admitting that anyone else has a point. They're quiet for awhile, watching the flower petals move in the breeze, maybe. "I got bored on the circuit," is how Luke sees fit to break the silence.

It was only obvious. "I know," Bo answers. "I kept thinking you'd enjoy it if you'd just relax and let yourself. But you—" No, he's not going to finish that sentence; there's no good place to take it.

"I might have wanted to drive." And that's a heartbreaking little confession right there. It was only natural, really, that he'd want to race sometimes himself – they'd switched out from time to time on the dirt track in Hazzard. But after that talk from Jesse…

"That's when you stopped trusting yourself?" His cousin doesn't answer, but they both know it's true.

For all the childish things that Bo was back then, and all the foolish things he forced Luke to do, he was smarter than his cousin. Or maybe just knew more on this one particular subject. Because he doesn't need hindsight to know that even if Luke had decided to take Sully's car, even if it had come to a trophy race and just the two Duke boys on the track, there's no way Luke would have let him get hurt. His cousin would've crashed his own car into a wall first.

Luke's ditched his tie somewhere along the way, but otherwise he's still dressed like a proper gentleman. Must've walked out here pretty carefully, because his shoes still shine. He stands straight and strong, and has likely saved more lives than even he knows. Bo reckons he pales in the eyes of his ancestors, standing next to Luke. But he steps up closer all the same.

"He used to say," and Bo's remembering it even as the words are coming out of his mouth. "A man could die of loneliness." Seems like there was more to that sentence though, something about a mule or a donkey.

"He had a good life, Bo," Luke admonishes. "Don't go thinking has wasn't happy or nothing." Or that he was lonely after he sent all of his kids away, maybe. Luke's been walking guilt for ten years now, and doesn't need another ounce of that particular poison laid on his shoulders.

"No, I know that," he agrees, because it's true. He ran his family with equal doses of discipline and fun, Jesse Duke did. "I was just thinking out loud."

About himself, maybe, for the first time since he walked around that apartment in Rockingham alone, angry at Luke for not staying even if he'd been told in no uncertain terms to leave. Then later he was angry at himself for being such a jackass, and only then did he start to feel sad. Heartbroken actually, and from there everything muted down from the brilliant colors of his youth into a sort of dull brown. Girls – there were hundreds of girls – on the edge of the track stopped being pretty, and cars stopped being fast. Everything became about working until he could play again, then playing until he had to work. It was all right, but none of it had any real meaning.

"About coming home, maybe. About going back to farming."

Luke snorts. "Shoot, Bo, you didn't hardly farm the last time. I don't reckon you've got the first idea how."

"I know," he answers back with a smile. "That's what I'd keep you around for."

* * *

February 1986

They have absolutely no idea what they are doing. Dukes only ever grew corn, and it wasn't exactly the eating kind. Genuinely edible crops, those they've got no experience with. It's one stumble after another, dried out stalks followed by rotted roots and that's before the beetles.

It's Bo's job to make Luke laugh about their ineptitude. At least that's what his cousin claims as he takes frequent breaks in the work for the express purpose of clowning around. Or when he drags Luke off to the Boar's Nest for lunches that turn into afternoons of sitting in the dark and nursing beers while Cooter describes, in pornographic detail, the innards of that Mustang that Dobro brought in with the colic. They go out on mercy missions from time to time, too – skimming over dirt roads with twilight's pinks gleaming off the General's orange coat as they calculate the exact second to hit the horn and rouse Rosco from his nap. The sheriff's rusty; once they get him to join the chase they have to slow down just so he can halfway keep up and feel like he's doing respectably well in his duty to protect the town from racing Duke boys. If the planets are aligned just right, they might mange to find Enos, too, and maybe pick up a wandering cruiser from Hatchapee, just passing through. If they can get the chain of a chase up to four or five cars, it's a banner day. Bo can play racecar driver to the local law's rodeo clowns, and while no one ever catches anyone else, the Duke boys have done a good deed by keeping Rosco from dying of loneliness.

In truth, the spring and summer were too full of the mistakes they made to allow for many excursions out into whatever Bo's idea of fun might have been. And then there was October's grueling harvest, which they couldn't have pulled off without a weak kneed and sunburned but determined Enos Strate, who'd only fainted the one time. Daisy hadn't been amused in the least, had taken out after Luke when she heard, as if he could have prevented the man from keeling over. Two solid swats of the spatula before Enos called her off and told her it wasn't Luke's fault, it was his own. In the end it was sheer luck that she got more concerned about pouring water down her husband's throat in an attempt at rehydration (that could have as easily turned into a drowning) than in wringing Luke's neck.

"See, I told you," Bo had muttered from the door to the Strate's kitchen, where he'd been huddling out of the way of the fray. "You got mountain lion medicine."

"Thanks for all your help, _badger_," he'd hissed back.

Come November, they'd put in winter wheat, as much to keep the fields fertile as anything else. After all the effort they had to put into plowing the weeds under back in March, they sure as heck didn't want to do anything like that again. But the wheat has turned out to be an effortless and plentiful crop, which they've already sold even before it's harvested. And it leaves them with plenty of time to get up to no good, which is what Dukes were made to do.

"A toast," he says, and it feels familiar. They're outside today, enjoying the first genuinely mild day they've had since October. Even Bo's thin blood seems warmed up this afternoon. "To Enos and Daisy on their first anniversary"

"Here, here," comes from some of their guests, the ones whose mouths aren't already filled with moonshine.

"And their life to come," he adds with a wink at Daisy over the double entendre. Reckons maybe he'd better duck in case she gets to be of a mind to throw her mason jar – filled with water, but that wasn't his biggest clue – at him.

"Luke," she snaps. "We ain't announced it yet! We was gonna… how did you know?" Fun is fun, but this little bit of fun's about to get him seriously hurt. Daisy's on her feet now, up from where she was seated at the picnic table and marching across the dead grass toward where he's standing under the old oak tree.

Bo's stepping out of her way (brave guy) and rambling, "Why is she—is she—Daisy, are you pregnant?" Observant fella too, now that it's just about been spelled out for him. Bo's fumbling ways have their merits, making Daisy choose between two targets and slowing her down just enough that Enos gets to her.

Luke's never thought of Hazzard's awkward deputy as a particularly brave man, mostly because he grew up watching the scab-covered kid version of Enos stumble his way through life. It comes to Luke now, as he watches the man throw himself directly in the path of Hurricane Daisy, how very heroic he really is. "Daisy, now," she's not even seeing her husband, not yet. "Sweetheart, please. Luke here didn't mean no harm. And we was gonna tell them today anyway." Daisy gives one last furious look at Luke (_I'll deal with you later _smoldering in those dark blue eyes), before she remembers her grace and smiles. Miss Lulu is the final icing on that nearly-dropped (but rescued at the last second) cake that's getting baked now, the one that celebrates new life in Hazzard.

"Did you hear, everybody? Daisy's gonna have a baby, a sweet little child," the matron weeps. Couldn't be more touched if she was a Duke herself.

Now that the danger's past, Bo's willing to stand next to him again. "Is she really?" he asks, like Luke's Doc Appleby and has just performed a medical examination of their cousin. But it's clear enough that she is, so Bo moves on to, "How did you know?"

Luke shrugs, watching as Daisy basks in the attention of their friends and extended family. Even Rosco gets into the spirit, jabbering about wijits and giji-goos into the general direction of Daisy's belly button. Hazzard needs this baby, if only because they'll soon have someone to translate Rosco-babble for them. "She looks like a pregnant girl does, I guess."

"She ain't got no belly, yet. And she ain't sick." And to Bo, those would be the only signs. He's never noticed the subtle shift of color in a pregnant woman's face, the way she carries herself with one hand always at the ready to protect her belly if need be, how she smiles when she doesn't think anyone's looking. Not to mention pouring water into a mason jar instead of partaking of some of Jesse's special brew like the rest of the guests.

"You can't see how her belly's all swollen there?" He can't resist, even if this line of discussion will get them both killed if Daisy ever gets done being hugged and cooed over. Luke puffs out his cheeks.

And gets swatted on the shoulder, Bo's a smart man for not taking that bait. "How soon," Bo is asking, "you reckon that little feller," and that could be trouble, too, the way Bo's already decided it's going to be a boy, "can help us in the fields?"

"So's you can sit back and 'supervise' him, you mean?" Luke suggests.

"Well, yeah, just like Jesse done with us." Bo's memory's slipped a disk. Their uncle might have worked them hard, but Jesse was there with them most of the time, and when he wasn't it was because he was at the still. It's amazing how much effort that man put into making a living out of dirt, supporting children that weren't even his. Keeping them alive and safe despite the way the three of them just about thwarted those efforts at every turn.

"Shoot," Luke says, thinking hard over the dilemma that Bo has posed. "Shouldn't be more than about three years before he's able to work as hard as you do right now."

Could be that's not entirely fair. Bo's put a lot of labor and love into rebuilding a life for the Dukes here in Hazzard. That hurt little look on his face there, that reminds Luke how hard Bo's worked just to bring some happiness back into both of their lives.

So Luke slings an arm across his shoulders, little squeeze of affection for the man, who is not so different from the boy. Gets a beaming smile for his efforts, and the warmth of his cousin leaning into his side.

For all the lessons his uncle taught him, and the ones he learned on his own, maybe the hardest won has been this: in truth, it's never been hard to make Bo Duke happy and be sure that he's safe. All Luke's ever had to do is keep him close.


End file.
